🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-10-27

[github-actions[bot]]

🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-10-27

Executive Summary

Over the last 24 hours, I analyzed 105 workflow runs to assess the health of safe output jobs in agentic workflows. Safe output jobs are critical infrastructure that handle GitHub API interactions (creating issues, PRs, discussions, and comments) after agents complete their work.

Overall Health Status: GOOD ✅ (82.2% success rate)

Key Metrics at a Glance

• Runs Analyzed: 105 total workflow runs
• Workflows with Safe Outputs: 71 runs (67.6%)
• Safe Output Jobs Executed: 73 total jobs
• Safe Output Jobs Failed: 13 failures
• Overall Success Rate: 82.2% ✅
• Error Clusters Identified: 7 distinct patterns

Full Report Details

Safe Output Job Statistics

Job Type	Total Executions	Failures	Success Rate	Status
create_discussion	9	0	100%	✅ Excellent
missing_tool	2	0	100%	✅ Excellent
create_issue	32	4	87.5%	✅ Good
push_to_pull_request_branch	16	3	81.3%	⚠️ Fair
add_comment	7	2	71.4%	⚠️ Fair
create_pull_request	7	4	42.9%	🚨 Needs Attention

Analysis by Job Type

✅ Excellent Performance (100% Success)

• create_discussion (9/9): Perfect reliability for creating GitHub discussions
• missing_tool (2/2): Tool reporting mechanism working flawlessly

✅ Good Performance (80-90% Success)

• create_issue (28/32): High reliability with 87.5% success rate
  • 4 failures primarily due to missing artifacts and configuration issues

⚠️ Fair Performance (70-85% Success)

• push_to_pull_request_branch (13/16): 81.3% success rate
  • 3 failures due to patch generation/application issues
• add_comment (5/7): 71.4% success rate
  • 2 failures: 1 validation error, 1 oversized content issue

🚨 Needs Attention (Below 70% Success)

• create_pull_request (3/7): 42.9% success rate
  • 4 failures primarily due to gh CLI exit code 4 (authentication/permissions)
  • This is the most problematic safe output job type

Error Clusters

Cluster 1: gh CLI Exit Code 4 (Authentication/Permission Errors) 🚨 CRITICAL

• Count: 3 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_pull_request
• Sample Error: ##[error]Process completed with exit code 4.
• Root Cause: The gh CLI is exiting with code 4, typically indicating authentication failure, insufficient permissions, invalid token, or API rate limiting
• Impact: CRITICAL - 42% of PR creation attempts fail
• Affected Runs: §18799165884, §18802858898, §18813905477

Cluster 2: Patch Generation Failures ⚠️

• Count: 3 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: push_to_pull_request_branch
• Sample Error: ##[error]Patch file generation failed
• Root Cause: Agent's patch generation creates files with "Failed to generate patch" marker or exceeds 1024 KB limit
• Impact: MEDIUM - Prevents code changes from being pushed to PR branches
• Affected Runs: §18816855563, §18818254898, §18820623510

Cluster 3: Missing Artifacts

• Count: 2 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_issue, create_pull_request
• Sample Error: ##[error]Unable to download artifact(s): Artifact not found for name: agent_output.json
• Root Cause: Agent job failed or cancelled before producing output
• Impact: MEDIUM - Cascading failures from upstream agent issues
• Note: Not a safe output bug - symptom of agent failures
• Affected Runs: §18810304059, §18813884690

Cluster 4: Missing GH_TOKEN for Copilot Assignment

• Count: 2 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_issue
• Sample Error: ##[error]GH_TOKEN environment variable is required but not set
• Root Cause: Configuration issue - GH_TOKEN not provided for @copilot assignment
• Impact: LOW - Issue created successfully, only assignment fails
• Note: Configuration/documentation issue
• Affected Runs: §18802841021, §18819663584

Cluster 5: Validation Error - Too Many Items

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: add_comment
• Sample Error: Too many items of type 'add_comment'. Maximum allowed: 1
• Root Cause: Agent produced multiple add_comment items when only 1 allowed
• Impact: LOW - Agent behavior issue, validation working as designed
• Affected Runs: §18820287416

Cluster 6: Issue Assignment Failed

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: create_issue
• Sample Error: ##[error]Failed to assign issue #2569 to @copilot``
• Root Cause: gh CLI failed when attempting to assign to @copilot user
• Impact: LOW - Issue created successfully, only assignment failed
• Affected Runs: §18823649455

Cluster 7: Git Patch Application Failed

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: push_to_pull_request_branch
• Sample Error: ##[error]Failed to apply patch: git failed with exit code 128
• Root Cause: Git patch conflicts with current branch state or is malformed
• Impact: MEDIUM - Code changes cannot be applied
• Affected Runs: §18816855563

Recommendations

Critical Priority Actions

1. Fix create_pull_request Authentication Issues 🚨

Priority: CRITICAL
Impact: Would improve overall success rate from 82% to ~90%

Recommended Actions:

• Audit all workflows using create_pull_request safe output
• Verify GITHUB_TOKEN has pull_requests: write permission
• Check for token expiration or revocation
• Test gh CLI with current tokens
• Add better error logging to capture specific gh error messages

Acceptance Criteria:

• Root cause identified (token permissions, rate limiting, or CLI bug)
• Fix implemented and tested
• create_pull_request success rate >80%
• Integration tests added

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-5 days)

2. Improve Patch Generation Reliability

Priority: HIGH
Impact: Would improve overall success rate by ~4%

Recommended Actions:

• Add validation before patch generation
• Implement size checks and warnings in agent
• Split large patches into multiple commits
• Add better error messages when patch generation fails
• Consider alternatives for very large changes

Acceptance Criteria:

• Patch generation failure rate <5%
• Clear error messages for size limits
• Alternative outputs for oversized changes
• Documentation on patch size best practices

Estimated Effort: Large (1-2 weeks)

High Priority Actions

3. Handle Missing Artifacts Gracefully

Priority: HIGH

Recommended Actions:

• Ensure agents always upload artifacts, even on failure
• Add retry logic with exponential backoff
• Implement better error messages distinguishing failures
• Add job dependencies to prevent unnecessary runs

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-5 days)

4. Document GH_TOKEN Configuration

Priority: MEDIUM

Recommended Actions:

• Update safe-outputs documentation
• Add clear examples for Copilot assignment
• Make GH_TOKEN optional with graceful degradation
• Add validation warnings in workflow compilation

Estimated Effort: Small (1-2 days)

Work Item Plans

Work Item 1: Fix create_pull_request gh CLI Exit Code 4 Failures

• Type: Bug Fix
• Priority: Critical
• Description: 42% of create_pull_request jobs failing with gh CLI exit code 4

Technical Approach:

1. Analyze failed runs to capture full gh CLI error output
2. Test gh CLI with current token permissions
3. Compare working vs failing workflow configurations
4. Implement fix (likely permission updates)
5. Add validation to workflow compiler

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-5 days)

Work Item 2: Improve Patch Generation Reliability

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: High
• Description: Agent patches failing due to size or containing failure markers

Technical Approach:

1. Add pre-generation size estimation in agent
2. Implement patch splitting for large changes
3. Add validation to detect failure markers
4. Provide alternative outputs (e.g., create issue with summary)
5. Add tests for large changeset scenarios

Estimated Effort: Large (1-2 weeks)

Work Item 3: Graceful Handling of Missing Artifacts

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: High
• Description: Safe output jobs fail when agent_output.json missing

Technical Approach:

1. Update agent job to upload artifacts on failure
2. Add job condition checks: if: needs.agent.result == 'success'
3. Implement retry logic in artifact download
4. Enhanced error messages with troubleshooting
5. Add tests for missing artifact scenarios

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-5 days)

Work Item 4: Document GH_TOKEN Configuration

• Type: Documentation
• Priority: Medium
• Description: Users missing GH_TOKEN configuration for Copilot assignment

Technical Approach:

1. Update docs/reference/safe-outputs.md
2. Add examples showing GH_TOKEN configuration
3. Implement compiler warning for missing GH_TOKEN
4. Update error messages with documentation links
5. Add FAQ section

Estimated Effort: Small (1-2 days)

Work Item 5: Safe Output Health Monitoring Dashboard

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: Medium
• Description: Automated monitoring with daily reports and public dashboard

Technical Approach:

1. Schedule this workflow daily via cron
2. Build historical analysis in cache-memory
3. Create visualization scripts
4. Implement alerting logic
5. Deploy dashboard to GitHub Pages

Estimated Effort: Medium (5-7 days)

Work Item 6: Enhanced Error Logging

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: Medium
• Description: Improve error messages and logging for easier debugging

Technical Approach:

1. Create logging utility for safe output jobs
2. Update all job scripts with structured logging
3. Capture full command output on errors
4. Add context to all logs
5. Implement log parsing for automated analysis

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-5 days)

Historical Context

This is the first Safe Output Health audit for this repository.

Baseline established:

• Overall success rate: 82.2%
• Most reliable job: create_discussion (100%)
• Least reliable job: create_pull_request (42.9%)
• Primary concern: gh CLI authentication issues

Future audits will compare against this baseline to track improvements and identify new patterns.

Metrics and KPIs

• Overall Success Rate: 82.2% ✅
• Most Reliable Job: create_discussion (100%)
• Most Problematic Job: create_pull_request (42.9%) 🚨
• Most Common Error: gh CLI exit code 4 (3 occurrences)
• Error Diversity: 7 distinct patterns
• Cascading Failures: 2 (from upstream agent failures)

Success Rate Targets

• Target Overall Rate: >90% (currently 82.2%)
• Target Per-Job Rate: >80% for all job types
• Current Jobs Meeting Target: 3 out of 6 job types

Improvement Opportunities

1. Fix create_pull_request auth → +14% overall success rate
2. Reduce patch failures → +4% overall success rate
3. Better artifact handling → +3% overall success rate

Potential Overall Rate After Fixes: ~93% ✅

Next Steps

Immediate (This Week)

• Investigate gh CLI exit code 4 in create_pull_request jobs
• Review token permissions in workflows
• Test gh CLI with current tokens
• Document findings

Short-term (Next 2 Weeks)

• Implement fixes for create_pull_request authentication
• Improve patch generation validation
• Add retry logic for artifacts
• Update documentation for GH_TOKEN

Long-term (Next Month)

• Build health monitoring dashboard
• Implement automated alerts
• Enhance logging across all jobs
• Create troubleshooting guide

Conclusion

The safe output system is in good health with 82% success rate. Most issues are from:

1. Upstream problems (agent failures, missing artifacts)
2. Configuration issues (missing tokens, permissions)
3. One critical bug (create_pull_request auth failures)

Good news: create_discussion has 100% reliability
Bad news: create_pull_request has only 43% reliability

Priority focus: Fix gh CLI authentication issues. This single fix would boost overall success rate from 82% to ~90%.

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Audit Date: 2025-10-27
Period: Last 24 hours
Audit Run: §18826064190

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References:

• §18799165884
• §18802858898
• §18813905477

AI generated by Safe Output Health Monitor

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion was automatically closed because it was created by an agentic workflow more than 1 month ago.