Automation/cron hosts commonly authenticate the swamp CLI via a SWAMP_API_KEY environment variable rather than the interactive swamp auth login OAuth flow, since that flow isn't practical on unattended machines. It's unclear whether activity authenticated this way is linked to the owning account the same way swamp auth login links it, or whether it accumulates against an unclaimed "ghost" device identity indefinitely.

Observation

We found a swamp-club.com "ghost" device page for a device with banked reputation/activity and no linked account. Its own copy states: "This is a device earning reputation in the Swamp with no operative attached. Its history is banked, not orphaned — the moment this device authenticates (swamp auth login), every point here folds into that account." That copy specifically names swamp auth login as the claiming trigger, not SWAMP_API_KEY-based auth.

This is consistent with how the CLI treats the two methods elsewhere — Lab issue submission (swamp issue bug/feature/etc.) explicitly requires swamp auth login; a valid SWAMP_API_KEY alone isn't documented as sufficient for that capability. That suggests API-key sessions may be a materially more limited tier than full login sessions, supporting the idea that API-key auth doesn't perform the same device-claim linking.

Why it matters

Automation hosts (cron, CI, homelab services) are exactly the machines most likely to accumulate long-running activity under SWAMP_API_KEY, and are also the machines where an interactive swamp auth login is least practical (headless, no browser). If API-key auth doesn't claim/link the device, there's no practical way to attribute that activity to the owning account on those hosts.

Ask

Confirm whether authenticating purely via SWAMP_API_KEY (no swamp auth login ever performed on that device) actually claims a pre-existing ghost device / links future activity to the account.
If not: consider making API-key auth perform the same claim/link behavior, since it's the intended mechanism for exactly the headless contexts where ghost devices are most likely to accumulate.
If it already claims correctly: the ghost page's own copy should probably mention SWAMP_API_KEY auth as an equivalent trigger, since it currently only mentions swamp auth login and leaves this ambiguous.

Environment

Multi-host homelab-style deployment sharing one swamp repo via a shared S3-compatible datastore — automation hosts authenticate via SWAMP_API_KEY exported in shell rc files for cron/model/workflow execution, primary dev machine uses swamp auth login.

02Bog Flow

Shipped

7/16/2026, 10:16:12 PM

Click a lifecycle step above to view its details.

03Sludge Pulse

stack72 assigned stack727/16/2026, 7:45:46 PM

stack72 commented 7/16/2026, 10:16:21 PM

Thanks @mgreten for reporting this! The fix has been merged and a release is on its way. We appreciate your contribution to swamp.

Bundled extension model cannot deserialize AWS SDK S3 XML that works in direct Deno

gcp/sheets spreadsheets-values: batch_get crashes with "Request with GET/HEAD method cannot have body"

Token creation API and UI scope selector for collective tokens (phase 4 of #960)

Make Cloudflare CRUD methods factory-aware so list-discovered resources can be managed in-place

[sc] quest-grant Mongo ops (recentHeartbeat/signalCounts/countIssueShipped) regressed to ~5s timeouts — missing index

Add @swamp/kubernetes/statefulset model type

serve: workflow.approvals and workflow.run.search still full-scan the workflow-run store after the #1284 data.query pushdown

Sync guard skips bound namespace directory during push — 0 files pushed after namespace migrate

Flaky #1052 preparePush test: mtime-granularity race on Linux tmpfs

command/shell renders JSON-object stdout lines as the literal string 'undefined'

Issue redactor treats the MongoDB authSource parameter as a secret, corrupting reproduction steps

namespace unset --migrate silently deletes artifact history via catalog-rebuild GC (~484k files lost)

Docs: document repo root resolution from subdirectories

Expose the swamp.club feed as an RSS feed

Email invitation is not linked to account created from invite URL

Add serve, datastore, vault, and worker wildcard scopes to token registry (phase 4 prep, #960)

datastore setup extension drops 'namespace' from --config, making extensions that require it impossible to configure

Docs: update manual to document --yes/-y as the standard confirmation-skip flag

Docs: update data.query and CEL expressions references for SQL pushdown

Docs: document collective token CLI usage in API key authentication pages

Add a --release-notes option to `swamp update` (or even make it the default)

Docs: manual should state workflow unknown keys are rejected and placement is step-only (follow-up to #1240)

Make GCP CRUD methods factory-aware so list-discovered resources can be managed in-place

serve: read ops (data.query, workflow.approvals, workflow run.search) linearly scan the whole datastore — ~350–600ms floor regardless of match count

Running "swamp workflow run ..." in a subdir of the swamp repo fails

Guide agents to inspect reports after failed model and workflow runs

serve: main JS thread holds ~40–70% of a core while idle (no clients, no runs, --no-schedule)

Search box collapses to near-zero width on mobile on the Extensions page

Extensions page: Search bar missing on mobile

spreadsheets-values: every method fails with 'Missing required path parameter: spreadsheetId' — implementation reads a global argument the schema does not declare

namespace migrate/set workflow broken for extension datastores: migrate skipped by sync guard, set not idempotent, migrate-index empties shards

ExtensionInfo.latestVersion typed 'string' but registry returns null; harden pull/resolve for prerelease-only extensions

workflow.run: relay a custom model method's output as method_output (command steps already do)

promptChoice infinite-loops on non-interactive stdin

gcp _lib: unconditional x-goog-user-project header causes USER_PROJECT_DENIED (403) for service accounts without the serviceUsageConsumer role

extension push: issue-verdict review is indistinguishable from missing/stale

swamp extension version crashes with 'Invalid CalVer version: "null"' when only a prerelease (beta/rc) version is published

Pushing an extension after creating a public git repo that is the same as other previously pushed extensions doesn't update the "Verified public repository"

`datastore setup filesystem` never transfers content when leaving a sync-based (remote) datastore — copies only the catalog and hardcodes `filesPulled: 0`

Scaleway models: create methods should not require the resource ID they generate (ipId/gatewayId/serverId/...)

gcp/calendar events.list reads wrong array field ('defaultReminders' not 'items') → always returns 0 events

provisioner.provision fails with 'Cannot read properties of undefined (reading trim)' at method_execution_service.ts:852

method_execution_service.ts:852 crashes on undefined.trim() when writeResource receives undefined instance name

CLI support for collective API tokens (phase 3 of #960)

@swamp/gcp/calendar: service-account & ADC auth mint cloud-platform-scoped tokens → 403 on Calendar API

Scope enforcement and whoami introspection for collective tokens (phase 2 of #960)

fix(software-factory): DeclaredSchemaSchema.enum rejects boolean literals

Surface cloud-provider labels (scaleway, digitalocean, oracle/oci) as first-class search/filter facets on the Extensions page

Profile link in genesis subdirectory does not navigate back to main profile

Profile stats: per-user daily rollup table + MV in ClickHouse

Reconcile collective-token CLI activity to members (attribute → bonus → stamp → even-split)

Telemetry stats consumer: unsanitized subcommand in Mongo update path drops user metrics silently

Telemetry stats consumer: insert_id dedup commits before the write it guards — any upsert failure is silently swallowed on retry

Job-level labels: block is silently ignored, not rejected

Issue submission redactor silently corrupts report bodies

CLI telemetry: fold third-level verbs into subcommand + canonicalize aliases

Docs: update extension info reference to document extensions (type grafts) in content metadata

Docs: swamp skill repo-structure reference still documents repo-local .swamp/telemetry/ as live

Add safe adoption and lifecycle methods for existing Hetzner resources

Docs: update manual telemetry reference for user-global spool and telemetry.yaml opt-out

export const extension can graft methods onto foreign-collective types, undisclosed in extension info / contentMetadata

Add lookup support to the Cloudflare DNS records model

Expand token scope registry to full taxonomy (phase 1 addendum, #960)

Docs: document user-global telemetry (telemetry.yaml opt-out, spool location, telemetry stats behavior)

score_daily rollup strands stale grains when a day-less grant re-stamps onto a later day

swamp-club: global rate limiter runs pre-auth and collapses all direct clients into one per-IP bucket — 429s authenticated CLI traffic

Collective API token scopes: domain, persistence, and auth threading (phase 1 of #960)

Telemetry migration from ~/.swamp/telemetry should auto-detect home-as-repo

feed_post_score_events queue grows unboundedly (no TTL, no delete-on-delivery)

Issue-filing skill should require ownership classification before submitting a bug

Interactive finder silently drops the preview pane on narrower terminals, and layout selection is unstable

@-mention autocomplete for users when writing lab ripples

Remove comments from /feed and redesign the page

Interactive finder preview corrupts: overlapping/stale lines when preview content overflows the pane

Score-refresh consumer: harden coalescing against a diverse backlog (bistability)

Remove feed comments — consolidate discussion in Discord

Add a 'my collective extensions' filter to extensions page

Relax the profanity filter

Extension search returns edit-distance noise for short queries ("asdl" → "AWS DEADLINE")

Telemetry recoverOrphaned startup race with multiple replicas (created_at-based)

Grant revoke is never applied to the running server — under `--grant-reload auto` and `manual` alike, a revoked grant stays in force until an explicit `access reload`