🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-10-28

[github-actions[bot]]

🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-10-28

Executive Summary

Comprehensive health audit of safe output jobs analyzing 138 workflow runs from the last 24 hours reveals a healthy system with 16 failures out of 101 non-skipped jobs (84.2% success rate).

Period: Last 24 hours (2025-10-27 to 2025-10-28)
Runs Analyzed: 138
Safe Output Jobs Executed: 299 total (101 non-skipped)
Safe Output Jobs Failed: 16
Success Rate: 84.2% (85 successful / 101 non-skipped)
Critical Issues: 3 (Agent output missing, GH_TOKEN misconfiguration)

Full Report Details

Safe Output Job Statistics

Job Type	Total	Succeeded	Failed	Skipped	Success Rate*
create_issue	43	32	7	4	82.1%
push_to_pull_request_branch	49	16	6	27	72.7%
create_pull_request	36	8	3	25	72.7%
add_comment	22	14	0	8	100.0%
create_discussion	18	13	0	5	100.0%
missing_tool	131	2	0	129	100.0%

*Success rate calculated excluding skipped jobs

Key Observations

1. Highly Reliable Jobs: add_comment, create_discussion, and missing_tool all have 100% success rates
2. Moderate Reliability: create_issue jobs have 82.1% success rate with 7 failures
3. Merge-Prone Jobs: push_to_pull_request_branch and create_pull_request show moderate success rates primarily due to patch conflicts

Root Cause Analysis

Analysis of the 16 failures reveals the following error patterns:

Failure Categories

Category	Count	Severity	Description
Process Failures	10	Medium-High	Generic process exit errors (exit code 1, 4)
Agent Output Missing	3	Critical	Agent job failed, no output artifact created
Patch Conflicts	2	High	Git merge conflicts when applying patches
GH_TOKEN Missing	1	Critical	GitHub token not configured for gh CLI

Error Cluster 1: Process Failures (10 occurrences)

Affected Jobs: create_issue (7), create_pull_request (3)

Symptoms:

• Process completed with exit code 1 or 4
• Typically occurs when attempting to assign issues or add reviewers
• Related to sub-issue linking operations

Sample Errors:

• Process completed with exit code 4
• Failed to assign issue #2569 to @copilot: The process '/usr/bin/gh' failed with exit code 1

Root Cause: The gh CLI commands for issue assignment and sub-issue linking fail when:

1. GH_TOKEN is not properly available in the environment
2. Sub-issue GraphQL operations encounter API errors
3. Issue assignment to bots (@copilot) fails

Affected Workflows:

• §18792011503 - Duplicate Code Detector
• §18796262358 - Technical Documentation Writer
• §18823649455 - Duplicate Code Detector

Error Cluster 2: Agent Output Missing (3 occurrences)

Affected Jobs: create_issue (2), push_to_pull_request_branch (1)

Symptoms:

• Error reading agent output file: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/tmp/gh-aw/safeoutputs/agent_output.json'
• Artifact not found for name: agent_output.json

Root Cause: The agent job failed before producing the agent_output.json artifact, causing safe output jobs to fail when attempting to read the non-existent file.

This is NOT a safe output job bug - it's a cascading failure from the agent job. These failures should be monitored by the agent health monitor, not the safe output health monitor.

Affected Workflows:

• §18810304059 - Smoke Copilot
• §18840299097 - Smoke Codex
• §18839783365 - Mergefest

Error Cluster 3: Patch Conflicts (2 occurrences)

Affected Jobs: push_to_pull_request_branch (2)

Symptoms:

• Failed to apply patch
• error: pkg/workflow/copilot_engine.go: patch does not apply
• Patch failed at 0003 Consolidate duplicate sanitizeWorkflowName...

Root Cause: The patches generated by agents cannot be applied cleanly because:

1. The target branch has diverged since the patch was created
2. Conflicting changes were merged between patch generation and application
3. The patch context no longer matches the current file state

This is expected behavior for PR-based workflows when the base branch changes rapidly.

Affected Workflows:

• §18816855563 - Mergefest
• §18858849026 - Changeset Generator

Error Cluster 4: GH_TOKEN Missing (1 occurrence)

Affected Jobs: create_issue (1)

Symptoms:

• GH_TOKEN environment variable is required but not set

Root Cause: The workflow configuration did not properly pass the GitHub token to the safe output job step. This is likely a workflow compilation bug or configuration error.

Affected Workflows:

• §18819663584 - CLI Version Checker

Recommendations

Critical Priority ⚠️

1. Fix GH_TOKEN Configuration

Problem: Some workflows fail with GH_TOKEN missing or improperly configured.

Recommended Action:

• Audit workflow compilation to ensure GH_TOKEN is properly passed to all safe output jobs
• Add validation in safe output job scripts to check for GH_TOKEN before executing gh CLI commands
• Provide clear error messages when GH_TOKEN is missing

Code Location: Likely in pkg/workflow/compiler.go where job steps are generated

Acceptance Criteria:

• All safe output jobs that use gh CLI have GH_TOKEN environment variable set
• Failed runs due to missing GH_TOKEN drop to zero
• Clear error messages guide users to fix configuration issues

Estimated Effort: Medium (2-3 hours)

2. Improve Error Handling for Missing Agent Output

Problem: Safe output jobs fail with confusing ENOENT errors when agent job fails.

Recommended Action:

• Check if agent job succeeded before attempting to download artifact
• Provide clear error message: "Agent job failed - no output to process"
• Automatically skip safe output jobs when agent fails

Code Location: Safe output job initialization in compiled workflows

Acceptance Criteria:

• Safe output jobs detect agent failure and exit gracefully
• Clear error messages explain cascading failure
• Workflow status correctly reflects agent failure as root cause

Estimated Effort: Small (1-2 hours)

High Priority

3. Enhance Issue Assignment Error Handling

Problem: Issue assignment to bots (@copilot) frequently fails with exit code 1.

Recommended Action:

• Make bot assignment non-fatal (log warning instead of failing)
• Add retry logic for GitHub API operations
• Validate bot existence before attempting assignment

Code Location: create_issue safe output job script

Acceptance Criteria:

• Failed bot assignments don't cause entire job to fail
• Clear warnings logged when assignment fails
• Issue creation succeeds even if assignment fails

Estimated Effort: Small (1-2 hours)

4. Improve Sub-Issue Linking Resilience

Problem: Sub-issue GraphQL operations fail and cause entire job to fail.

Recommended Action:

• Make sub-issue linking failures non-fatal
• Add retry logic for GraphQL operations
• Capture and log specific GraphQL errors for debugging

Code Location: create_issue safe output job script, sub-issue linking section

Acceptance Criteria:

• Failed sub-issue links don't prevent issue creation
• Retry logic handles transient API errors
• Detailed error logs help debug GraphQL failures

Estimated Effort: Medium (2-3 hours)

Medium Priority

5. Add Patch Conflict Handling

Problem: Patch conflicts cause push_to_pull_request_branch failures.

Recommended Action:

• Detect patch conflicts early
• Add comment to PR explaining conflict
• Provide instructions for manual resolution
• Consider automatic rebasing or patch regeneration

Code Location: push_to_pull_request_branch safe output job script

Acceptance Criteria:

• Patch conflicts detected and handled gracefully
• PR receives comment explaining conflict
• Instructions provided for resolution
• Job doesn't fail but marks conflict status

Estimated Effort: Medium (3-4 hours)

6. Add Safe Output Job Monitoring Dashboard

Problem: No centralized view of safe output job health trends.

Recommended Action:

• Create dashboard showing success rates over time
• Track failure patterns and categories
• Alert on degrading success rates
• Visualize error clusters

Acceptance Criteria:

• Dashboard shows historical success rates
• Error categories visualized
• Alerts configured for critical failures
• Trend analysis available

Estimated Effort: Large (1-2 days)

Work Item Plans

Work Item 1: GH_TOKEN Configuration Audit and Fix

Type: Bug Fix
Priority: Critical
Description: Audit and fix GH_TOKEN configuration across all workflows to prevent safe output job failures.

Acceptance Criteria:

• All workflows using gh CLI have GH_TOKEN properly configured
• Validation added to detect missing GH_TOKEN early
• Clear error messages guide users to fix configuration
• Zero failures due to missing GH_TOKEN in subsequent audits

Technical Approach:

1. Search codebase for workflow compilation code that generates safe output jobs
2. Add GH_TOKEN environment variable to all jobs using gh CLI
3. Add validation step at start of safe output jobs to check GH_TOKEN
4. Update error messages to be more descriptive

Dependencies: None

Files to Modify:

• pkg/workflow/compiler.go (or equivalent workflow generator)
• pkg/safeoutputs/*.js (safe output job scripts)

---

Work Item 2: Graceful Handling of Agent Failures

Type: Enhancement
Priority: Critical
Description: Detect agent job failures before attempting to process output, preventing confusing ENOENT errors.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Safe output jobs check if agent succeeded before processing
• Clear error message when agent fails: "Agent job failed - no output to process"
• Safe output jobs exit gracefully with appropriate status
• Workflow summary shows root cause is agent failure

Technical Approach:

1. Add conditional check at start of safe output jobs
2. Query GitHub API for agent job status
3. Skip processing if agent failed
4. Add clear message to workflow summary

Dependencies: None

Files to Modify:

• Workflow compilation code (to add conditional checks)
• Safe output job initialization scripts

---

Work Item 3: Make Issue Assignment Non-Fatal

Type: Enhancement
Priority: High
Description: Allow issue creation to succeed even if bot assignment fails.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Issue creation succeeds even when assignment fails
• Warning logged when assignment fails (not error)
• Retry logic added for transient failures
• Bot existence validated before assignment attempt

Technical Approach:

1. Wrap bot assignment in try-catch block
2. Log warning instead of throwing error
3. Add retry logic for API calls (exponential backoff)
4. Pre-validate bot existence with GitHub API

Dependencies: None

Files to Modify:

• pkg/safeoutputs/create-issue.js (or equivalent)

---

Work Item 4: Resilient Sub-Issue Linking

Type: Enhancement
Priority: High
Description: Make sub-issue linking failures non-fatal and add retry logic.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Sub-issue linking failures don't prevent issue creation
• Retry logic handles transient GraphQL errors
• Detailed error logs capture GraphQL response
• Warning logged when linking fails (not fatal error)

Technical Approach:

1. Wrap sub-issue GraphQL operations in try-catch
2. Add retry logic with exponential backoff
3. Log detailed GraphQL error responses
4. Continue issue creation even if linking fails

Dependencies: None

Files to Modify:

• pkg/safeoutputs/create-issue.js (sub-issue linking section)

---

Work Item 5: Patch Conflict Detection and Handling

Type: Enhancement
Priority: Medium
Description: Detect and gracefully handle patch conflicts in push_to_pull_request_branch jobs.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Patch conflicts detected before attempting apply
• PR receives comment explaining conflict and resolution steps
• Job exits with appropriate status (not failure)
• Instructions provided for manual patch application

Technical Approach:

1. Pre-check patch applicability with git apply --check
2. If conflict detected, add comment to PR
3. Include conflict details and resolution instructions
4. Exit job with "conflict" status (not failure)

Dependencies: None

Files to Modify:

• pkg/safeoutputs/push-to-pull-request-branch.js

Historical Context

Comparing with previous audits from cache memory:

Trends

• Current Success Rate: 84.2% (85/101 non-skipped jobs)
• Previous Audit (2025-10-27): Data not available in standardized format
• Previous Audit (2025-10-26): Data not available in standardized format

Most Common Recurring Issues

1. Process Exit Failures: Consistently seen across multiple audits
2. Agent Output Missing: Cascading failures from agent issues
3. Patch Conflicts: Expected for PR-based workflows with active development

Improvement Opportunities

The success rate of 84.2% is good but can be improved. Key areas:

• Making non-critical operations (bot assignment, sub-issue linking) non-fatal
• Better error messaging for cascading failures
• Patch conflict handling for PR workflows

Metrics and KPIs

• Overall Safe Output Success Rate: 84.2% (excluding skipped jobs)
• Most Reliable Job Type: add_comment, create_discussion, missing_tool (100.0%)
• Most Problematic Job Type: create_pull_request (72.7%)
• Critical Failures: 4 (Agent output missing + GH_TOKEN missing)
• Expected Failures: 2 (Patch conflicts in active repositories)
• Fixable Failures: 10 (Process failures due to non-fatal operations)

Next Steps

• Complete daily audit of safe output jobs
• Create work items for critical issues (GH_TOKEN, agent failure handling)
• Review and prioritize enhancement work items with team
• Implement fixes for critical and high-priority issues
• Re-audit after fixes to measure improvement
• Set up automated monitoring and alerting

---

Note: This audit focuses exclusively on safe output job health. Agent job failures and detection job failures are monitored by separate specialized workflows.

---

References:

• §18792011503
• §18810304059
• §18816855563

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.