Match agent failure issues by stored metadata instead of title alone by Copilot · Pull Request #33089 · github/gh-aw

Copilot · 2026-05-18T16:34:19Z

The failure-issue handler was reusing open issues by workflow title alone, causing unrelated failures across branches, PRs, categories, and expired reports to accumulate into the same thread. This change scopes reuse to the issue’s stored workflow metadata and expiration state so only the same failure stream is appended.

Problem
- Failure issues were treated as reusable if the title matched, ignoring:
  - workflow_id already stored in the body marker
  - triggering branch / PR
  - failure category
  - expiration marker
- In practice, one stale issue could become a long-lived sink for unrelated failures.
What changed
- Added precise issue matching based on HTML/XML comment metadata embedded in the issue body.
- Reuse now requires an exact match on:
  - workflow_id
  - branch
  - optional PR number
  - normalized failure category set
- Expired issues are no longer eligible for reuse.
- New failure issues now include a dedicated failure-match marker alongside the existing workflow marker.
Search behavior
- Kept title search as the coarse candidate filter.
- Added body inspection to select the correct issue from same-title candidates.
- Paginated candidate search so matching does not silently stop after the first 100 results.
Metadata format
- New issues now carry a dedicated marker like:

<!-- gh-aw-failure-issue: true, workflow_id: pr-docs-check, branch: docs/fix-links, pull_request: 123, failure_categories: missing_safe_outputs|report_incomplete -->

Test coverage
- Added focused handler tests for:
  - exact-match reuse
  - same-title but different branch/category creating a new issue
  - expired issues not being reused

pr-sous-chef: refreshed branch from https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/26052176977

Generated by 👨‍🍳 PR Sous Chef · ◷

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR tightens failure issue reuse so new failures are matched against stored workflow/failure metadata instead of title alone.

Changes:

Adds parsing and generation of failure-match metadata markers.
Uses branch, PR number, workflow ID, categories, and expiration state when reusing issues.
Adds focused tests and regenerates one workflow lockfile.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
`actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.cjs`	Implements precise metadata-based failure issue matching.
`actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.test.cjs`	Adds tests for matching, mismatching, and expired failure issues.
`.github/workflows/pr-description-caveman.lock.yml`	Regenerates the PR Description Updater workflow lockfile with updated runtime/action configuration.

Copilot's findings

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Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.cjs:260

The new pagination behavior is not covered by the added tests. A regression here would silently reintroduce the first-100-results limit for same-title failure issues, so add a test where the matching issue appears on a later page.

  for (let page = 1; ; page += 1) {
    const searchResult = await github.rest.search.issuesAndPullRequests({
      q: searchQuery,
      per_page: perPage,
      page,
    });

Files reviewed: 3/3 changed files
Comments generated: 2

+
+    /** @type {Record<string, string>} */
+    const metadata = {};
+    const pairPattern = /([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+):\s*([^,]+?)(?=,\s*[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+:\s*|$)/g;


      - name: Setup Scripts
        id: setup
-        uses: github/gh-aw-actions/setup@v0.72.1
+        uses: ./actions/setup


pelikhan · 2026-05-18T18:26:39Z

@copilot review all comments

github-actions · 2026-05-18T18:28:19Z

@copilot review all comments

Please address the unresolved review feedback and rerun checks after the branch refresh.

Generated by 👨‍🍳 PR Sous Chef · ◷

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-05-18T18:35:14Z

@copilot review all comments

Addressed the reviewer comments in c663f28: fixed failure-issue metadata parsing so comma-containing marker values still match correctly, added coverage for comma-containing workflow/branch values, and removed the unrelated pr-description-caveman.lock.yml change from this PR.

pelikhan · 2026-05-18T18:39:13Z

@copilot review all comments

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

…lure-issue-handler # Conflicts: # actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.test.cjs Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-05-18T18:55:19Z

@copilot review all comments

Addressed in ab38fd8: kept the comma-safe metadata parsing fix, refreshed the branch from origin/main so the unrelated pr-description-caveman.lock.yml change is no longer in the PR, and re-ran actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.test.cjs successfully.

pelikhan · 2026-05-18T19:07:00Z

@copilot add tests

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-05-18T19:13:22Z

@copilot add tests

Added targeted regression coverage in 82deb9e for paginated same-title issue search and exact pull-request metadata matching, and re-ran npm test -- --run handle_agent_failure.test.cjs successfully.

github-actions · 2026-05-18T19:18:44Z

``
@copilot review all comments

Please summarize remaining blockers and post a short completion plan. If applicable, refresh the branch and rerun checks.

``

Generated by 👨‍🍳 PR Sous Chef · ◷

Initial plan

f2b1c3b

Copilot AI assigned Copilot and pelikhan May 18, 2026

Copilot started work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 16:44 View session

Copilot AI linked an issue May 18, 2026 that may be closed by this pull request

Failure-issue handler matches by title alone, turning one issue into an unbounded multi-PR / multi-cause / post-expiry comment magnet #33060

Closed

Copilot AI and others added 4 commits May 18, 2026 16:51

Plan failure issue matching

7c6f92d

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Implement precise failure issue matching

543419f

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Fix failure handler test branch isolation

4b5714f

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Paginate precise failure issue search

5dfe50b

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot AI changed the title ~~[WIP] Fix issue handler to match by workflow id and other criteria~~ Match agent failure issues by stored metadata instead of title alone May 18, 2026

Copilot AI requested a review from pelikhan May 18, 2026 17:05

Copilot finished work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 17:05

pelikhan marked this pull request as ready for review May 18, 2026 18:19

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings May 18, 2026 18:20

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 18:21 View session

Copilot AI reviewed May 18, 2026

View reviewed changes

Copilot started work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 18:26 View session

Handle comma-containing failure metadata

c663f28

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 18:35

Copilot started work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 18:39 View session

Copilot AI and others added 2 commits May 18, 2026 18:45

Remove unrelated PR description lockfile change

d26c6ca

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Restore PR description lockfile to main

d37e096

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

github-actions Bot mentioned this pull request May 18, 2026

[aw] No-Op Runs #32279

Open

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into copilot/fix-agent-fai…

ab38fd8

…lure-issue-handler # Conflicts: # actions/setup/js/handle_agent_failure.test.cjs Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 18:56

Copilot started work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 19:07 View session

test: cover failure issue pagination and PR matching

82deb9e

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of pelikhan May 18, 2026 19:13

pelikhan merged commit b3eae0b into main May 18, 2026

pelikhan deleted the copilot/fix-agent-failure-issue-handler branch May 18, 2026 19:28

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Match agent failure issues by stored metadata instead of title alone#33089

Match agent failure issues by stored metadata instead of title alone#33089
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Pull request overview

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