- tower-hermes.sh: health check, pause file, exponential backoff, message held on failure
- tower-timmy.sh: same pattern for Ollama backend, messages held not lost
- timmy-loop.sh: pause after 2 consecutive cycle failures, backoff probe
- tower-watchdog.sh: respect .paused files, don't restart paused loops
Behavior:
1 failure → log warning, retry next turn
2 failures → enter pause, write .paused file, probe with backoff
Backend returns → auto-resume, clear pause file
Watchdog sees .paused → skip that loop, don't fight the pause
Messages from the other side → held in inbox, not lost
Timmy doesn't have Gitea access in CLI chat mode. Instead of asking
him to check for PRs (which he can't), we fetch the latest merged PR
and commit summary ourselves and ask for his opinion on the change.