Set up goal checks and self-healing for your workflows

Before you start

• A workflow in Pairbar (schedule a workflow).
• Notifications allowed for Pairbar, so you hear about missed goals and health flags.

Steps

1. Write the goal
   In the workflow editor's Goal section, say what success looks like in checkable terms, for example "all tests on main pass and a PR with the fix is open".
2. Turn on the goal check
   Switch on Check the result against the goal. A last read-only step, on whichever app has more limit left, reads every step's report, looks at the folder if needed, and ends with GOAL MET or GOAL NOT MET.
3. Choose what happens when it isn't met
   Tell me sends a notification that the goal wasn't met, and why. Try once more re-runs the steps that change files (or the last ones, if none do) with what the check found, then checks again and tells you either way.
4. Keep Fix problems during a run on
   In When things go wrong, Fix problems during a run is on by default. It applies fixed rules (no AI) to temporary errors, missing models, stalls and low limits.
5. Allow the other app when a plan runs low (optional)
   Turn on Use the other app when a plan runs low so a step moves to the other app with its default model instead of failing or being skipped.
6. Pick what the doctor may do
   Under After repeated problems, choose Suggest a fix (the default), Apply small fixes, or Do nothing.
7. Read the run, not just the result
   Each fix shows as a small badge under its step in the run, for example "Retried on Claude's default model: opus wasn't available". The goal check's verdict is the run's last line, with its own Open.

Fixes during a run

Health flags

The workflow's page summarises the last 10 runs: Steps OK counts runs whose steps completed, Goal met counts checks that returned a verdict, Typical time shows the median duration, and Limit skips counts runs skipped for limits. Hover over each figure for its meaning. The figures wrap in narrow sidebars. A failed goal check or missing verdict is shown separately. A notification goes out when a new flag appears:

• a step failed the last two runs or more;
• the goal was missed twice in a row;
• a step's condition skipped it in every one of the last five runs (maybe it can go);
• three or more runs were skipped for plan limits;
• a run took over three times as long as usual.

The doctor

When a step fails twice in a row or the goal is missed twice, a short read-only planning chat on your own Claude or Codex reads the recent runs and proposes a clearer prompt, another model or effort, a condition, a schedule, or removing a useless step. It runs at most once a day per workflow; Check it and suggest a fix in the ⋯ menu runs it now.

Undo last change in the ⋯ menu reverts one change at a time, whether it was your edit, an applied suggestion or the doctor's own; the last 10 versions are kept.

Troubleshooting

A step keeps timing out

Steps are stopped at 30 minutes and not retried. Split the work into two steps with Add a step after this.

The goal is always NOT MET

Make the goal concrete and checkable from what the steps report or the folder shows. The doctor will also suggest a change after two misses.

The doctor changed something I didn't want

Use Undo last change in the workflow's ⋯ menu, and set After repeated problems to Suggest a fix.