Workflow hydration fails when using non-main branch

[quay-devel]

Summary

When creating a session with a workflow that lives on a non-main branch (e.g., a PR branch), the workflow files are not hydrated into the session workspace. The working directory is created but remains empty.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have a workflow defined on a PR branch (not merged to main)
   • Example: quay/ai-helpers repo, branch konflux-build-triage-workflow, path workflows/konflux-build-triage (PR #13)
2. Create a session using that workflow, specifying the branch — either via the chat dropdown UI or via acp_create_session with workflow_branch set to the PR branch
3. Observe that the workflow directory in the session workspace is empty (no CLAUDE.md, no scripts, no .ambient/ambient.json)

Expected Behavior

The workflow files from the specified branch should be cloned and hydrated into the session workspace, regardless of whether the branch is main or a feature/PR branch.

Actual Behavior

• The working directory is created (e.g., /workspace/workflows/ai-helpers/) but is completely empty
• The SessionStart hook never fires (since .claude/settings.json doesn't exist)
• The agent starts with no instructions, no scripts, and no tools
• Both the UI dropdown flow and acp_create_session API appear to have the same issue

Evidence

Session created via UI dropdown:

$ ls -la /workspace/workflows/ai-helpers/
total 0
drwxr-sr-x. 2 1001730000 1001730000  6 May  8 16:44 .
drwxr-sr-x. 3 1001730000 1001730000 24 May  8 16:44 ..

Session created via acp_create_session API (with explicit workflow_branch: "konflux-build-triage-workflow"):

• Session reported as Running with agentStatus: idle, 0 messages after ~9 minutes — consistent with failed hydration

Environment

• Workflow repo: https://github.com/quay/ai-helpers.git
• Branch: konflux-build-triage-workflow
• Workflow path: workflows/konflux-build-triage
• Session date: 2026-05-08

[quay-devel]

Closing — this was user error. The full path to the workflow directory was not specified when creating the session.