🏥 Safe Output Health Report - 2026-02-16

[github-actions[bot]]

Executive Summary

• Period: Last 24 hours (2026-02-15 to 2026-02-16)
• Runs Analyzed: 47
• Workflows Active: Multiple workflows across the repository
• Safe Output Jobs Executed: 47
• Safe Output Jobs Failed: 1
• Error Clusters Identified: 1
• Overall Success Rate: 97.87%

Safe Output Job Statistics

Job Type	Total Executions	Failures	Success Rate
Process Safe Outputs	47	0	100%
Assign Copilot to created issues	1	1	0%
Overall	47	1	97.87%

Safe Output Types Executed

During the 24-hour audit period, the following safe output types were used:

• create_issue: 1 execution
• create_discussion: 0 executions
• add_comment: 0 executions
• create_pull_request: 0 executions
• noop: Multiple executions (workflows completed without creating outputs)

Workflow Run Distribution

Conclusion	Count	Percentage
Success	33	70.2%
Failure	13	27.7%
Cancelled	1	2.1%

Important Note: Most workflow failures (12 out of 13) were due to agent job failures, not safe output job failures. Only 1 failure was directly caused by a safe output job issue.

Error Clusters

Cluster 1: Permission Error - Copilot Agent Assignment

• Count: 1 occurrence
• Affected Jobs: Assign Copilot to created issues
• Affected Workflows: Duplicate Code Detector
• Sample Error:

  ##[error]Failed to assign copilot: Request failed due to following response errors:
   - Could not assign agent: target repository is not writable.
  

• Root Cause: The safe_outputs job attempts to assign the GitHub Copilot agent to newly created issues when the issue body includes Assignee: @copilot``. However, the GraphQL mutation replaceActorsForAssignable requires write permissions that the workflow's GITHUB_TOKEN does not have.
• Impact: The workflow creates the issue successfully, but then fails when trying to assign Copilot to it. This causes the entire safe_outputs job to fail with exit code 1, marking the overall workflow as failed even though the primary goal (creating the issue) succeeded.
• Severity: Medium - The core functionality works (issue creation), but the workflow is marked as failed due to an optional enhancement step.

Technical Details

Failed Run: §22049623765
Workflow: Duplicate Code Detector
Issue Created: #16037
Failed Step: 7_Assign Copilot to created issues.txt

GraphQL Error:

• Type: FORBIDDEN
• Mutation: replaceActorsForAssignable
• Message: "Could not assign agent: target repository is not writable."

Error Location: /tmp/gh-aw/aw-mcp/logs/run-22049623765/workflow-logs/safe_outputs/7_Assign Copilot to created issues.txt:77-80

Root Cause Analysis

Permission-Related Issues

The single safe output job failure was caused by insufficient permissions for the Copilot agent assignment operation. The workflow follows this sequence:

1. ✅ Agent job runs successfully and outputs create_issue with Assignee: @copilot``
2. ✅ Detection job validates the output
3. ✅ Safe_outputs job processes the output and creates issue Duplicate Code: Expired Entity Cleanup Scripts Repeat Metadata + Cleanup Flow #16037
4. ❌ Safe_outputs job attempts to assign @copilot to the issue via GraphQL
5. ❌ GraphQL mutation fails with FORBIDDEN error
6. ❌ Safe_outputs job exits with error, marking workflow as failed

Why This Happens:

• The assign_copilot_to_created_issues.cjs script uses the GraphQL mutation replaceActorsForAssignable
• This mutation requires write permissions to modify issue assignments
• The workflow's GITHUB_TOKEN may not have the necessary permissions, or the permission check is incorrectly validating writability

Other Issue Categories

Good News: No other error categories were detected:

• ✅ No API Rate Limiting: Zero rate limit errors from GitHub API
• ✅ No Parsing Errors: All agent outputs were successfully parsed and validated
• ✅ No Validation Errors: All safe output data passed schema validation
• ✅ No Network Errors: No timeout or connection failures
• ✅ No MCP Server Failures: All MCP servers functioned correctly

Recommendations

Critical Issues (Immediate Action Required)

1. Fix Copilot Agent Assignment Permission Error

Priority: Medium
Root Cause: GraphQL mutation replaceActorsForAssignable returns FORBIDDEN error due to insufficient permissions
Recommended Action: Choose one of the following implementation options:

Option A: Add Required Permissions (Recommended)

• Add issues: write permission explicitly to the safe_outputs job
• Verify that the workflow has the necessary permissions to assign issue assignees
• This ensures the intended functionality works as designed

Option B: Make Assignment Optional

• Modify assign_copilot_to_created_issues.cjs to catch permission errors gracefully
• Log a warning instead of failing when assignment is not possible
• Allow the safe_outputs job to succeed even if Copilot assignment fails
• Benefits: Prevents workflow failure when core functionality (issue creation) succeeded

Option C: Remove Automatic Assignment

• Remove the automatic @copilot assignment feature from issue creation
• Use a separate workflow or manual process to assign Copilot to issues
• Benefits: Simplifies the safe_outputs job and removes the permission dependency

Affected: Duplicate Code Detector workflow and any other workflow that creates issues with @copilot assignee

Process Improvements

2. Implement Graceful Degradation for Optional Steps

Priority: Low
Current State: Optional post-processing steps (like Copilot assignment) cause job failure when they error
Proposed: Implement error handling that distinguishes between:

• Critical errors: Core safe output operations (create_issue, create_discussion, etc.)
• Optional errors: Enhancement steps that can fail without failing the workflow

Benefits:

• Workflows are marked successful when core functionality succeeds
• Optional features can fail gracefully with warnings
• Better user experience - no false negatives

Implementation:

// In assign_copilot_to_created_issues.cjs
try {
  await assignCopilotToIssue(issue);
  core.info(`✓ Successfully assigned Copilot to issue #\$\{issue.number}`);
} catch (error) {
  if (error.message.includes('FORBIDDEN') || error.message.includes('not writable')) {
    core.warning(`⚠️  Could not assign Copilot to issue #\$\{issue.number}: \$\{error.message}`);
    core.warning('   This is not a critical error. The issue was created successfully.');
    // Don't throw - allow job to succeed
  } else {
    throw error; // Re-throw unexpected errors
  }
}

Historical Context

This is the first safe output health audit. Future audits will include trend analysis comparing with previous periods.

Metrics and KPIs

• Overall Safe Output Success Rate: 97.87%
• Most Reliable Job Type: Process Safe Outputs (100% success rate)
• Most Problematic Job Type: Assign Copilot to created issues (0% success rate, 1 execution)
• Average Safe Output Job Duration: ~11 seconds
• Common Safe Output Type: create_issue (when outputs are generated)
• Most Common Outcome: Workflows complete with no safe outputs (noop messages)

Performance Metrics

• Token Usage Across All Runs: 330.8M tokens
• Estimated Cost: $6.76
• Total Agent Turns: 525 across all runs
• Total Errors: 13 (mostly agent job errors, not safe output errors)
• Total Warnings: 0

Next Steps

• Complete safe output health audit for 2026-02-16
• Implement fix for Copilot assignment permission error
• Add graceful error handling for optional post-processing steps
• Monitor for recurring patterns in next audit cycle
• Establish baseline metrics for comparison

Analysis Metadata

• Audit Date: 2026-02-16
• Audit Tool: Safe Output Health Monitor (automated)
• Logs Location: /tmp/gh-aw/aw-mcp/logs/
• Cache Location: /tmp/gh-aw/cache-memory/safe-output-health/
• Workflow Run: §22050071003

References:

• §22049623765 - Duplicate Code Detector (failed safe_outputs job)

AI generated by Safe Output Health Monitor

• expires on Feb 23, 2026, 4:35 AM UTC

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion was automatically closed because it expired on 2026-02-23T04:35:08.071Z.

Closed by Workflow