Cargo CLI — Diagnostics
Forensic runbooks for workflow behavior: trace one run, sweep a batch for errors, profile a play's credit spend. This skill is the interpretation layer — the raw surfaces (run get, orchestration SQL, billing metrics) are documented in cargo-orchestration and cargo-billing; each runbook here tells you which of them to pull, in what order, and what each output shape means.
Which runbook?
What are you diagnosing?
│
├── One run / one record ("why did this record fail?",
│ "run succeeded but the output is wrong/empty")
│ └── references/run-trace.md
│
├── Many runs ("the batch has errors", "error rate spiked",
│ "which node keeps failing?")
│ └── references/batch-error-sweep.md
│
└── Cost ("this play is expensive", "where do the credits go?",
"make this cheaper")
└── references/play-optimize-credits.mdRule of thumb: start with the sweep when you don't yet know which run to look at — it ends by handing you exemplar run UUIDs to feed into the trace.
Boundary with cargo-analytics: analytics measures and exports ("what's the error rate?", "download the batch results", "export this segment"); this skill explains ("why is the error rate up?", "why is this record's output empty?"). A diagnosis often starts from an analytics signal (error count spiked, batch reports failedRunsCount > 0) and ends back in analytics — once the cause is fixed and runs re-executed, bulk retrieval goes through run download-outputs / batch download / segment download, all documented in ../cargo-analytics/SKILL.md. This skill's evidence surfaces (run get, orchestration SQL, billing metrics) are for diagnosis, not bulk export.
References
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
references/run-trace.md | Walk one run end-to-end: per-node executions, runContext outputs, branch routing, per-node credits and timing. |
references/batch-error-sweep.md | Find errored runs across a batch/play/workspace, group failures by root cause, pick exemplars, decide fix vs report. |
references/play-optimize-credits.md | Attribute credit spend to workflows and nodes, then apply the cost levers in priority order. |
Prerequisites
See ../cargo/references/prerequisites.md for install, login (--oauth / --token), JSON output conventions, and error shapes. Verify the session with cargo-ai whoami before running any of the commands below.
Credit attribution steps (billing usage get-metrics, billing subscription get) need a token with admin access; everything else works with a standard token.
The three surfaces every runbook draws on
| Surface | Command | Gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Run detail | cargo-ai orchestration run get <run-uuid> | run.executions[] (node-by-node trace), runContext (per-node output keyed by nodeSlug), runComputedConfigs (what each node was actually called with) |
| Orchestration SQL | cargo-ai orchestration query execute "<sql>" | Aggregates over runs, batches, spans, records (ClickHouse; no schema prefix; workspace-scoped) |
| Billing metrics | cargo-ai billing usage get-metrics --from <date> --to <date> | Credit totals, filterable and groupable by workflow_uuid, connector_uuid, agent_uuid, integration_slug, model_uuid |
Full query syntax, table columns, and caps: ../cargo-orchestration/references/examples/queries.md. Debugging field semantics: ../cargo-orchestration/references/troubleshooting.md.
Presenting findings
Follow ../cargo/references/interaction.md: lead with the conclusion ("18 of 20 failures are one cause: the connector's token expired"), summarize evidence in a short table, never dump raw run get JSON or full query results into the conversation. Any fix that re-runs paid nodes goes through the pilot gate in ../cargo-gtm/references/cost-discipline.md.
When diagnosis dead-ends
If the evidence contradicts documented behavior (a field missing from run get, a query cap that doesn't match the docs, an error that makes no sense), file a report — that's the official channel and the team reads every one:
cargo-ai workspaceManagement report create \
--title "<one-line summary>" \
--description "<commands run, errorMessage verbatim, expected vs actual, UUIDs>"
