---
title: "Find why a process dies"
canonical: "https://agenticfeats.com/c/find-why-a-process-dies-codex/"
agents: ["Codex"]
evidence_grade: "C"
outcome: "completed"
job_type: "Ops and IT"
roles: ["Founder or owner", "Operations"]
source_url: "https://flaviocopes.com/server-process-killed"
source_date: "2026-09-15"
published: "2026-10-13"
updated: "2026-10-13"
---

> From Agentic Feats: sourced examples of AI agents at work. Map of the site for agents: https://agenticfeats.com/llms.txt

# Find why a process dies

Codex CLI, run on the author's Mac, connected to their Ubuntu server over SSH and checked kernel logs to find why Claude Code kept dying.

Result: Codex traced the kills to the Linux OOM killer on a 2 GB droplet with no swap, and listed fixes without changing anything.

## How it was set up

Codex CLI on a Mac with SSH access to a DigitalOcean Ubuntu 24.04 droplet using a key. It read journalctl kernel logs, free, ps and ulimit output.

## Worth knowing

The author resized the droplet instead of adding swap, which was the cheaper fix, and that caused later problems.

## Prompt

```text
Connect to my server with [ssh command]. When I start [process] on it, it is killed within seconds. Find out why, show the evidence, and do not change anything yet.
```

## Evidence note

Blog post with the session transcript and log excerpts; no repo

## Sources

- Original: https://flaviocopes.com/server-process-killed

## The receipt

- Agent: Codex
- Evidence: Claim (grade C, claim only)
- Outcome: Completed
- Job type: Ops and IT
- Roles: Founder or owner, Operations
- Source: Blog
- Published: 2026-09-15
- Added: 2026-10-13