# Root Cause Analysis: Failed Worktree Cleanup Implementation

## Executive Summary

This document presents a comprehensive root cause analysis of the failed worktree cleanup implementation. The investigation identified three critical areas that contributed to the implementation's failure:

1. Incorrect liveness checking logic implementation
2. Improper integration of shared testing state configuration  
3. Structural coordination problems between agent tracking and worktree cleanup

The approach was ultimately too complex for the initial attempt and didn't properly integrate with existing patterns in the codebase, resulting in a failure with exit code 1.

## Failure Points

### 1. Liveness Checking Logic Implementation Issues

**Problem**: The liveness checking logic was incorrectly implemented and couldn't properly query process status from the registry.

**Impact**: This prevented proper monitoring of process health and status, leading to incorrect decisions about when processes should be considered active or inactive.

**Root Cause**: The implementation failed to correctly interface with the registry system for process status queries, likely due to:
- Incorrect API usage or method calls
- Misunderstanding of registry data structures
- Missing error handling for registry access failures

### 2. Shared Testing State Configuration Integration Problems

**Problem**: Shared testing state configuration wasn't properly integrated, specifically issues with `CARGO_TARGET_DIR` and `shared_paths`.

**Impact**: This caused inconsistencies in test execution environments and potentially led to tests running against incorrect or conflicting configurations.

**Root Cause**: The integration failed to properly handle:
- Environment variable propagation for `CARGO_TARGET_DIR`
- Path resolution and sharing mechanisms for `shared_paths`
- Synchronization of shared state across different testing contexts

### 3. Structural Coordination Between Agent Tracking and Worktree Cleanup

**Problem**: Structural coordination problems existed in agent tracking and worktree cleanup coordination.

**Impact**: These issues created race conditions and inconsistent states during cleanup operations, leading to potential resource leaks or incomplete cleanup processes.

**Root Cause**: The coordination logic had flaws in:
- Agent lifecycle management
- Worktree state synchronization
- Communication protocols between tracking and cleanup components

## Conclusion

The overall approach was too complex for the initial implementation attempt and didn't properly align with existing patterns and practices within the codebase. This resulted in an implementation that failed with exit code 1, indicating a fundamental architectural or integration issue that needs to be addressed through a more incremental and well-integrated approach.

## Recommendations

1. Simplify the liveness checking implementation to properly integrate with the existing registry system
2. Re-evaluate and refactor the shared testing state configuration to ensure proper environment variable handling and path management
3. Redesign the structural coordination between agent tracking and worktree cleanup with clearer interfaces and synchronization mechanisms
4. Implement a more incremental approach that better integrates with existing codebase patterns