Batch runs: some repos produce empty output (possible resource/timeout issue)

[inutano]

Summary

During a batch run of runabilly against ~40 repos using claude -p "/runabilly <url>" in headless mode (4 parallel jobs), a small number of repos consistently produced empty output (0 bytes) across multiple retries, while the majority completed successfully.

Observations

• The affected repos included an R/Shiny package with many remote GitHub dependencies and an Angular/Electron app with a heavy npm dependency tree. Both are legitimate software projects.
• The empty output suggests the Claude session exited before producing any report — no error message, no partial output.
• Other repos in the same batch with similar or greater complexity completed fine, so it may be timing-sensitive or resource-sensitive rather than a deterministic failure.
• Docker Desktop was configured with 8 GB memory; each container is capped at 4 GB.

Possible causes

• Memory pressure when 4 containers run simultaneously, especially for dependency-heavy R or Node.js projects
• A timeout or resource limit that silently kills the Claude session rather than producing a FAILURE report
• Interaction between headless mode (claude -p) and long-running docker exec commands

Suggestion

It might be worth:

• Adding a health-check or heartbeat mechanism so that if the evaluation session dies, at least a partial report or error message is captured
• Documenting recommended Docker Desktop memory settings for batch runs (e.g., "allocate at least 4 GB per concurrent container")

Happy to provide more details if helpful.