When a routine stops

Member·3 minutes to read

The rows for a routine that hasn't fired, or that was paused while you were away, are verified against docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-15-p4-e-routine-heartbeat.md §1.3–§1.5. Neither has shipped yet — re-verified against the code at close-out.

What this does for you

This page reads the exact words a stopped or struggling routine shows you, and says what each one means and what to do about it.

Before you start

The routine's bot or group, open in its details pane.
The routine itself, open in its editor — reached from its row under Routines.
Its Run history, in the same editor: the last twenty runs, newest first, with no way yet to open one for detail (a deferred part of the design, docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-02-botseon-design.md:1181).

Steps

Open the routine from its row in Routines. The row itself already tells you if it's paused.
Check Run history for the routine's most recent runs and their state.
Check the notification tray (the bell) for anything naming this routine — some stops are reported there rather than on the row.
Match the exact word or sentence you see against the table below.

A worked example

The wording an admin sees when a routine is paused because the bot it runs on stopped being visible to the member who owns it — read this back to confirm it's the same routine before you act on it:

The routine "Inbox sweep" was paused because the bot it runs on is no longer visible to the
member who owns it. Setting that bot back to team visibility, or recreating the routine under
the bot's owner, lets it run again.

What can go wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
`Paused`	The routine's own Active switch is off. Nothing else is wrong with it.	Open the routine and turn Active back on.
`No trigger set`	The routine is active, but every trigger on it was removed.	Open the routine and add a trigger under "When to run".
`A routine was paused`	An administrator or owner of the organisation was notified: the routine's own owner left the organisation, or the bot or group it runs on is no longer visible to them.	Read the notice body for which of the two it is, then either restore the bot's or group's visibility to its owner, or recreate the routine under a current member.
`Failed`	The routine's most recent run ended in an error. Run history does not yet link to that run's own transcript, so the reason isn't visible from here.	Test-run the routine again to try to reproduce the failure, or simplify the instruction and try once more.
`Hasn't run for 1 day`	The routine was due to fire and hasn't, for a day or more — its schedule or trigger may no longer be reachable.	Open the routine, check "When to run", and either fix the trigger or turn the routine off.
`Paused while you were away`	You hadn't opened the app for a long stretch, so every routine you own was paused rather than left firing unattended.	Open the routine and resume it, or wait until you next open the app, where every paused routine can be resumed at once.