🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-11-05 - CRITICAL: 100% Failure Rate

[github-actions[bot]]

🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2025-11-05

Executive Summary

🚨 CRITICAL STATUS: 100% Failure Rate

• Period: Last 24 hours (2025-11-04 to 2025-11-05)
• Runs Analyzed: 92 workflow runs
• Workflows with Safe Output Jobs: 55
• Safe Output Jobs Executed: 59
• Safe Output Jobs Failed: 59 (100%)
• Safe Output Jobs Succeeded: 0 (0%)
• Error Clusters Identified: 6 major clusters

Severity: 🔴 CRITICAL - Complete system failure of safe output operations

---

Safe Output Job Statistics

Job Type	Total Executions	Failures	Successes	Success Rate
create_issue	25	25	0	0%
create_pull_request	12	12	0	0%
create_discussion	11	11	0	0%
add_comment	8	8	0	0%
push_to_pull_request_branch	3	3	0	0%
TOTAL	59	59	0	0%

---

Full Report Details

Error Clusters

Cluster 1: Git Push/Branch Errors ⚠️

• Count: 15 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_pull_request, push_to_pull_request_branch
• Affected Workflows: 15 runs
• Severity: 🔴 HIGH

Sample Errors:

##[error]Git push failed: The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 1
##[error]Branch copilot/add-secret-masking-field does not exist on origin, can't push to it

Root Cause:
Safe output jobs are attempting to push to branches that either:

1. Don't exist on the remote repository
2. Have conflicting changes
3. Were not properly created before the push operation

Impact: Pull request creation and branch pushing completely broken for all workflows.

---

Cluster 2: Discussion Category Not Found ⚠️

• Count: 11 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_discussion
• Affected Workflows: 11 runs
• Severity: 🟡 MEDIUM

Sample Errors:

##[warning]Category "security" not found by ID, name, or slug. 
Available categories: Announcements, Artifacts, Audits, Daily News, Dev, General, Q&A, Tidy

##[warning]Category "ideas" not found by ID, name, or slug. 
Available categories: Announcements, Artifacts, Audits, Daily News, Dev, General, Q&A, Tidy

Root Cause:
Agents are generating discussion output with category names that don't exist in this repository. The available categories are:

• Announcements
• Artifacts
• Audits
• Daily News
• Dev
• General
• Q&A
• Tidy

Agents are trying to use categories like "security" and "ideas" which don't exist.

Impact: All discussion creation attempts fail due to invalid category specification.

---

Cluster 3: Discussion Not Found ⚠️

• Count: 8 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: add_comment
• Affected Workflows: 8 runs
• Severity: 🔴 HIGH

Sample Errors:

throw new Error(`Discussion #${discussionNumber} not found in ${owner}/${repo}`);

Root Cause:
Agent output is referencing discussion numbers that either:

1. Don't exist in the repository
2. Were deleted or closed
3. Agent has stale or incorrect context about existing discussions

Impact: Comment operations fail completely when targeting non-existent discussions.

---

Cluster 4: Permission Errors (Token Limitations) 🔒

• Count: 3 occurrences
• Affected Jobs: create_issue, create_pull_request
• Affected Workflows: 3 runs
• Severity: 🔴 CRITICAL

Sample Errors:

gh: Resource not accessible by personal access token (HTTP 403)
{"message":"Resource not accessible by personal access token","documentation_url":"https://docs.github.com/rest/pulls/review-requests#request-reviewers-for-a-pull-request","status":"403"}

failed to update https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw/issues/3177: GraphQL: Resource not accessible by personal access token (replaceActorsForAssignable)

Affected Operations:

1. Requesting PR reviewers (specifically copilot-pull-request-reviewer[bot])
2. Assigning issues to @copilot

Root Cause:
The GitHub personal access token (PAT) being used lacks sufficient permissions for:

• Adding bot reviewers to pull requests
• Assigning issues to certain users

Impact: Secondary operations after creating issues/PRs fail, leaving them unassigned and without reviewers.

---

Cluster 5: Artifact Download Errors 📦

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: create_pull_request
• Affected Workflows: 1 run
• Severity: 🟡 MEDIUM

Sample Errors:

##[error]Unable to download artifact(s): Artifact not found for name: aw.patch

Root Cause:
The agent job either:

1. Failed to produce the aw.patch artifact
2. Artifact upload failed
3. Artifact retention expired before safe output job ran

Impact: Pull request creation cannot proceed without the patch artifact.

---

Cluster 6: Environment Variable Missing

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: create_issue
• Affected Workflows: 1 run
• Severity: 🟢 LOW

Sample Errors:

core.setFailed("ASSIGNEE environment variable is required but not set")

Root Cause:
Workflow configuration issue where the ASSIGNEE environment variable was not properly set in the workflow YAML.

Impact: Issue assignment step fails, but issue is still created.

---

Root Cause Analysis

Critical Issues

1. Git Operations Completely Broken (15 failures)

   • Branches are being referenced that don't exist on remote
   • Push operations failing consistently
   • Likely a workflow configuration or branch management issue

2. Agent Context Issues (19 failures)

   • Agents generating invalid discussion categories
   • Agents referencing non-existent discussions
   • Agent prompts may need clearer instructions about available categories

3. Token Permission Gaps (3 failures)

   • PAT lacks permissions for bot reviewer assignments
   • PAT lacks permissions for certain issue assignments

Systemic Problems

The 100% failure rate indicates systemic problems rather than isolated incidents:

1. Workflow Configuration: Fundamental issues with how safe output jobs are configured
2. Agent Output Validation: Agents producing output that references non-existent resources
3. Permission Model: Token permissions not aligned with required operations
4. Error Handling: No graceful degradation - all failures are hard failures

---

Recommendations

🔴 Critical Issues (Immediate Action Required)

1. Fix Git Push/Branch Operations

Priority: 🔴 CRITICAL
Root Cause: Branches don't exist on remote before push attempts
Recommended Action:

• Investigate why branches are not being created on remote before push
• Add pre-push validation to check branch existence
• Implement automatic branch creation if missing
• Review create_pull_request and push_to_pull_request_branch job scripts

Affected: 15 workflow runs, create_pull_request and push_to_pull_request_branch jobs

2. Update Agent Prompts for Discussion Categories

Priority: 🔴 HIGH
Root Cause: Agents unaware of available discussion categories
Recommended Action:

• Add discussion category list to agent prompts/instructions
• Valid categories: Announcements, Artifacts, Audits, Daily News, Dev, General, Q&A, Tidy
• Add validation in safe output job to default to "General" if invalid category specified
• Update MCP tools documentation to list available categories

Affected: 11 workflow runs, create_discussion jobs

3. Add Discussion Existence Validation

Priority: 🔴 HIGH
Root Cause: Agent output references non-existent discussions
Recommended Action:

• Add validation step in add_comment job to check discussion existence before attempting comment
• Provide better error messages to agent with available discussions
• Consider implementing discussion search/validation in agent prompt

Affected: 8 workflow runs, add_comment jobs

4. Upgrade Token Permissions

Priority: 🟡 MEDIUM
Root Cause: PAT lacks permissions for reviewer assignments and some issue assignments
Recommended Action:

• Upgrade GitHub token to include:
  • Pull request reviewer assignment permissions
  • Issue assignment permissions for bot accounts
• Consider using GitHub App installation token instead of PAT for broader permissions
• Document required token scopes in workflow configuration

Affected: 3 workflow runs, create_issue and create_pull_request jobs

---

Bug Fixes Required

1. Fix Branch Management in create_pull_request Job

File/Location: .github/workflows/*create_pull_request* scripts
Problem: Attempting to push to branches that don't exist on remote
Fix:

# Before pushing, ensure branch exists on remote or create it
git ls-remote --heads origin ${BRANCH_NAME} || git push -u origin ${BRANCH_NAME}

Affected Jobs: create_pull_request

2. Add Category Validation in create_discussion Job

File/Location: Safe output job script for create_discussion
Problem: No validation of discussion categories against available categories
Fix:

const validCategories = ["Announcements", "Artifacts", "Audits", "Daily News", "Dev", "General", "Q&A", "Tidy"];
if (!validCategories.includes(categoryName)) {
  core.warning(`Category "${categoryName}" not valid, defaulting to "General"`);
  categoryName = "General";
}

Affected Jobs: create_discussion

3. Add Discussion Validation in add_comment Job

File/Location: Safe output job script for add_comment
Problem: No check if discussion exists before attempting to comment
Fix:

// Validate discussion exists before commenting
const discussion = await github.graphql(`
  query($owner: String!, $repo: String!, $number: Int!) {
    repository(owner: $owner, name: $repo) {
      discussion(number: $number) {
        id
      }
    }
  }
`, { owner, repo, number: discussionNumber });

if (!discussion?.repository?.discussion) {
  core.setFailed(`Discussion #${discussionNumber} does not exist`);
  return;
}

Affected Jobs: add_comment

---

Configuration Changes

1. Token Permissions

Current: PAT with limited permissions
Recommended: GitHub App installation token or PAT with enhanced scopes
Reason: Current token cannot assign PR reviewers or assign issues to bots
Required Scopes:

• pull_requests: write
• issues: write
• contents: write

2. Discussion Category Documentation

Current: Agents have no knowledge of available categories
Recommended: Add to agent instructions
Categories:

Available discussion categories:
- Announcements
- Artifacts
- Audits
- Daily News
- Dev
- General (default)
- Q&A
- Tidy

---

Process Improvements

1. Pre-flight Validation

Current State: Safe output jobs attempt operations without validation
Proposed: Add validation step before each operation
Benefits:

• Catch issues before execution
• Provide better error messages
• Allow graceful degradation

2. Graceful Degradation

Current State: All failures are hard failures
Proposed: Implement fallback mechanisms
Examples:

• If discussion category invalid → use "General"
• If PR reviewer assignment fails → log warning but continue
• If branch doesn't exist → create it automatically

3. Better Error Messages for Agents

Current State: Generic errors don't help agents learn
Proposed: Provide context-rich error messages
Examples:

• "Discussion Network Permissions Testing Report - MCP Fetch Tool Analysis #123 not found. Available discussions: MCP Network Permissions Test Results - Proxy Configuration Analysis #120, Implement MCP Network Permissions Testing Infrastructure #121, Add MCP Server Log Collection and Upload to Workflow Runs #122"
• "Category 'security' not valid. Available: Announcements, Artifacts, Audits..."

4. Safe Output Health Monitoring

Current State: No proactive monitoring of safe output job health
Proposed: Daily health checks (this workflow)
Benefits:

• Early detection of systemic issues
• Trend analysis over time
• Proactive fixes before widespread impact

---

Work Item Plans

Work Item 1: Fix Git Branch Push Operations

• Type: Bug Fix
• Priority: 🔴 CRITICAL
• Description: Safe output jobs are attempting to push to branches that don't exist on remote, causing 100% failure rate for PR creation and branch pushing operations.

Acceptance Criteria:

• All create_pull_request jobs successfully push to branches
• All push_to_pull_request_branch jobs successfully push changes
• Branches are created on remote if they don't exist
• No "branch does not exist" errors in logs

Technical Approach:

1. Review current branch creation logic in safe output job scripts
2. Add pre-push validation to check if branch exists on remote
3. Implement automatic branch creation on remote if missing
4. Add retry logic for transient push failures
5. Test with multiple scenarios (new branch, existing branch, conflicting changes)

Estimated Effort: Medium (1-2 days)

Dependencies: None

---

Work Item 2: Implement Discussion Category Validation and Defaults

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: 🔴 HIGH
• Description: Agents are generating discussion categories that don't exist, causing 100% failure for discussion creation. Need to validate categories and provide defaults.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Safe output job validates discussion categories before API call
• Invalid categories default to "General" with warning
• Agent instructions include list of valid categories
• No "Category not found" errors in logs
• Discussion creation success rate > 95%

Technical Approach:

1. Update create_discussion safe output job script:

   const validCategories = ["Announcements", "Artifacts", "Audits", "Daily News", "Dev", "General", "Q&A", "Tidy"];
   if (!validCategories.includes(categoryName)) {
     core.warning(`Category "${categoryName}" not valid, defaulting to "General"`);
     categoryName = "General";
   }

2. Update agent prompt instructions to include valid categories
3. Add MCP tool documentation for discussion categories
4. Test with valid and invalid categories

Estimated Effort: Small (4-8 hours)

Dependencies: None

---

Work Item 3: Add Discussion Existence Validation

• Type: Bug Fix
• Priority: 🔴 HIGH
• Description: Comment operations are failing because agents reference discussions that don't exist. Need to validate discussion existence before attempting to comment.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Safe output job validates discussion exists before adding comment
• Clear error message when discussion doesn't exist
• No "Discussion not found" runtime errors
• Comment creation success rate > 90%

Technical Approach:

1. Add GraphQL query to check discussion existence in add_comment job
2. Fail gracefully with informative error message if not found
3. Consider providing list of available discussions in error message
4. Update agent context to provide accurate discussion references
5. Test with existing and non-existent discussions

Estimated Effort: Small (4-6 hours)

Dependencies: None

---

Work Item 4: Upgrade Token Permissions for Safe Output Operations

• Type: Configuration Change
• Priority: 🟡 MEDIUM
• Description: Current PAT lacks permissions for PR reviewer assignments and some issue assignments, causing post-creation operations to fail.

Acceptance Criteria:

• PR reviewer assignments succeed (including bot reviewers)
• Issue assignments succeed (including @copilot)
• No "Resource not accessible by personal access token" errors
• Permission-related failure rate < 1%

Technical Approach:

1. Audit current token permissions and scopes
2. Identify missing permissions:
   • Pull request reviewer assignment
   • Issue assignment for bot accounts
3. Options:
   • Upgrade PAT with additional scopes
   • Migrate to GitHub App installation token (recommended)
4. Update workflow configuration with new token
5. Test all affected operations
6. Document required permissions for future reference

Estimated Effort: Medium (1 day)

Dependencies: GitHub organization admin access for token permissions

---

Work Item 5: Implement Graceful Degradation for Safe Output Jobs

• Type: Enhancement
• Priority: 🟡 MEDIUM
• Description: Currently all safe output failures are hard failures. Implement graceful degradation to allow partial success and better error recovery.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Secondary failures (assignments, labels) don't fail entire job
• Clear warnings logged for non-critical failures
• Primary operations (create issue/PR/discussion) still succeed
• Job summary shows what succeeded and what failed
• Overall success rate > 80% (even with partial failures)

Technical Approach:

1. Categorize operations as critical vs. optional:
   • Critical: Create issue/PR/discussion, add comment
   • Optional: Assign reviewers, add labels, assign issues
2. Wrap optional operations in try-catch blocks
3. Log warnings instead of failing job for optional operations
4. Add job summary showing partial success state
5. Test various failure scenarios

Estimated Effort: Medium (1-2 days)

Dependencies: Work Items 1-4 should be completed first

---

Work Item 6: Add Safe Output Job Pre-flight Validation

• Type: Enhancement
  Priority: 🟢 LOW
• Description: Add validation step before each safe output operation to catch issues early and provide better error messages.

Acceptance Criteria:

• All safe output jobs validate inputs before execution
• Clear error messages for validation failures
• Validation step logs helpful diagnostic information
• Agent can learn from validation error messages

Technical Approach:

1. Create validation helper functions for each operation type
2. Check resource existence (discussions, issues, branches)
3. Validate references and identifiers
4. Provide context-rich error messages
5. Consider making validation errors recoverable

Estimated Effort: Medium (2-3 days)

Dependencies: Work Items 1-4

---

Metrics and KPIs

• Overall Safe Output Success Rate: 0.0% 🔴
• Most Reliable Job Type: None (all at 0%) 🔴
• Most Problematic Job Type: All types equally affected (0% success) 🔴
• Most Common Error Type: Git push/branch errors (25% of all failures)
• Error Diversity: 6 distinct error clusters identified

---

Historical Context

This is the first audit of the safe output health monitoring system. No historical trend data available yet.

Baseline Metrics (2025-11-05)

• Total safe output jobs: 59
• Failure rate: 100%
• Most common error: Git push/branch failures (15 occurrences)

Next Audit: These metrics will serve as baseline for future audits to track improvements.

---

Next Steps

Immediate Actions (Today)

• Investigate git push failures - review branch creation logic
• Update agent prompts with valid discussion categories
• Add category validation with "General" default

This Week

• Fix all identified git branch/push issues
• Implement discussion existence validation
• Upgrade token permissions
• Deploy fixes and monitor results

This Month

• Implement graceful degradation across all safe output jobs
• Add pre-flight validation for all operations
• Establish SLO for safe output success rate (target: >95%)
• Weekly monitoring of safe output health metrics

---

Critical Alert Summary

🚨 SYSTEM STATUS: CRITICAL FAILURE

All safe output operations are failing. This represents a complete breakdown of the agentic workflow output system. Immediate intervention required.

Top 3 Priorities:

1. Fix git branch push operations (affecting 25% of failures)
2. Validate discussion categories and add defaults (affecting 19% of failures)
3. Validate discussion existence before commenting (affecting 14% of failures)

Expected Impact of Fixes: Resolving these three issues should restore >50% of safe output operations to working state.

---

References:

• §19053192202
• §18978176169
• §19082691255

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 week ago.