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DottaandClaude Opus 5.5 958f9aa9f3 feat(issues): limit agent-created task trees to parent and child (#19312)
## Thinking Path

> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - Agents split work into tasks. A task can have a parent task.
> - Today agents can nest tasks to any depth: parent, child, grandchild,
and deeper.
> - Deep agent-made trees are hard to follow, and an agent that works on
a child task makes grandchildren by default.
> - This pull request limits agent-created trees to two levels: a
top-level task and its children.
> - A request for a grandchild does not fail. The server puts the new
task beside the requester and tells the agent.
> - Board users keep full control. They can still nest to any depth.
Existing deep trees stay valid.
> - The pull request also records which task created each new task, so
the audit trail stays complete when the parent changes.

## Linked Issues or Issue Description

No public issue exists. This is the feature description. Related: #16853
(budgets that include descendant work) also reasons about task trees;
this change does not alter its traversal.

**Subsystem affected**

Issues (tasks): create, child create and move in the issue service and
routes. Agent tools, chat suggestions and creation provenance use these
paths.

**Problem or motivation**

Agents create subtasks as deep as they want. An agent that runs on a
child task gets that child as the default parent, so its follow-ups
become grandchildren. The trees become deep and hard to read. The parent
link is also the only record of which task created a follow-up, so that
record is lost when the parent changes.

**Proposed solution**

Limit agent-created trees to a parent and its children. When an agent
asks for a grandchild, put the new task under the requester's parent and
return `parentAdjusted`. Do not reject the request. Keep board users
unrestricted. Record the originating task in a new server-set
`origin_issue_id` column. Keep `origin_run_id` as the originating run.

**Alternatives considered**

Reject grandchild requests with an error. We did not do this, because
agents then fail mid-task. Add a database constraint. We did not do
this, because existing deep trees must stay valid and nesting can return
later.

## What Changed

- Add `MAX_AGENT_TASK_HIERARCHY_DEPTH` (2) and the
`IssueParentAdjustment` type in `packages/shared`.
- Add `resolveNewTaskParent` and `planIssueParentChange` in
`server/src/services/issues.ts`. `create`, `createChild` and `update`
use the agent limit by default (`parentDepthPolicy: "flatten"`).
- The issue create, `/children` and PATCH routes pass `allow_nested` for
board users. For agents, the routes check authorization against the
parent that the server actually writes.
- The requester keeps its behavior when the server moves a task beside
it: `blockParentUntilDone` blocks the requester, and the new task
inherits the requester's workspace and privacy.
- The server never moves a task above a low-trust boundary root that
contains the requester.
- These subsystems keep any depth, because they find their work by
parent: watchdog reviews, monitor recovery, email-channel placement, and
routines that a person configured.
- An agent move of a task that has children skips only the parent change
and returns `reason: "has_children"`.
- Add `issues.origin_issue_id` (nullable, `on delete set null`, indexed)
in migration `0434`. Only the server sets it. The `createdFrom` detail
field, the `createdFromIssueId` filter and task-creation provenance read
it first.
- Chat prompts now let a chat agent create one task, a task with
children, or separate tasks. The conversation is never a parent.
- The runner `create_task` tool accepts an optional `parentTaskId`. A
chat agent can create a top-level task and then put subtasks under it.
The run must be able to read and change the parent. A conversation is
never a parent. The depth limit still applies. Project tools map the
field to `parentId` through the issue route. The protocol manifest,
semantic contracts and eval fixture are regenerated.
- Watchdog runs that have an active watchdog keep their requested parent
on all create paths, because their access is limited to the watched
subtree.
- Fix a bug that the test drive found: the chat (MCP) `create_task`
ignored the requested `status`, so a `backlog` task became `todo` and
started to run. It now uses the same rule as the native tool.
- Update `skills/paperclip`, `doc/SPEC-implementation.md`, and add the
plan `doc/plans/2026-11-05-two-level-task-hierarchy.md`.

## Verification

- `cd server && npx vitest run
src/__tests__/agent-task-hierarchy-depth.test.ts
src/__tests__/agent-task-hierarchy-depth-routes.test.ts`: 19 new tests
for service and route behavior, all pass.
- Related suites (64 files: issues service, thread interactions,
privacy, watchdogs, provenance, runner tool authority, decisions,
routines, project tools): 1208 tests pass. Two tests changed because of
the intended behavior and pass now. Two `email-channels.integration`
tests fail locally because the test cannot find a bundled skill file
from this worktree path. This change does not touch that code.
- `packages/db`: migration safety, snapshot drift and journal tests
pass.
- Typecheck passes for `server`, `packages/shared`, `packages/db`, `cli`
and `ui` (local `ui` errors come only from generated Storybook catalog
files that are absent).
- Local test drive on an isolated instance with real Claude agents: 29
of 29 use cases pass, including an agent on a child task (follow-ups
placed beside it, with the notice) and a chat that creates a top-level
task with three subtasks.
- I did not run the full `pnpm test:run` or `pnpm build` locally. CI
runs them.

## Risks

- Behavior change for agents: some follow-ups that were grandchildren
are now siblings. The parent of the requester is woken when all its
children finish, which now includes these tasks.
- The runner `create_task` input contract adds one optional field, so
the protocol manifest and the pack contract change. The tool output does
not change: it shows the actual `parentId`, and the activity log records
`parentAdjusted`.
- Migration `0434` adds a nullable column, a foreign key and an index.
It does not backfill rows.
- `IssueCreationSource.run` is now nullable.

## Model Used

- Claude Opus 5.5 (`claude-opus-5-5`) in Claude Code, with tool use
(shell, file edits, local test runs).

## Checklist

- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [ ] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [ ] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [ ] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-11-05 21:22:33 -06:00
DottaandPaperclip a92f616cd0 fix(db): attribute bounded captures to execution owners (#18634)
## Thinking Path

> - Paperclip manages agent work through shared server and database
services.
> - High query volume can spend main-thread time on SQL construction and
result decoding.
> - The existing bounded response capture counts rows and bytes, but it
cannot name the operation that executed a query.
> - Bundled callers can be missing, and measuring every parsed JSON
value adds work to the diagnostic.
> - This pull request carries a semantic execution owner into each
measured query and bounds response sizing.
> - Operators can rank query volume by owner before choosing a
performance fix.

## Linked Issues or Issue Description

Refs #17504, #17522, #17537, #17564.

**What existing behavior does this improve?**

The opt-in `PAPERCLIP_DB_RESPONSE_CAPTURE_WINDOW` diagnostic.

**Subsystem affected**

Database diagnostics and existing server execution boundaries.

**Current behavior**

The capture groups by table, operation, and builder caller. It cannot
distinguish execution owners that reuse a prepared query. Bundled
deployments need source maps for caller locations. The capture visits
every returned value and serializes parsed JSON again to estimate its
size.

**Proposed behavior**

Version 2 captures use fixed semantic owners for HTTP requests, delivery
queues, execution phases, and budget work. They count completed calls,
returned rows, errors, and completion wall time. They sample successful
results 1, 17, 33, and so on, with fixed cell and string/byte limits.
Complex values remain explicitly unmeasured. Semantic ownership works
without source maps.

**Reason and benefit**

A short census can identify which operations issue the most queries or
return the most rows. It preserves each query's execution owner through
pooled connections, concurrent operations, and prepared-query reuse. It
reduces diagnostic work without claiming per-query CPU attribution.

**Breaking changes**

Opt-in capture output moves from `entry.v1`/`summary.v1` to
`entry.v2`/`summary.v2`. Sampled primitive byte lower bounds replace
all-result byte estimates. Consumers must use the new fields and must
not extrapolate them into a total. There is no database migration or
application API change.

## What Changed

- Added `withDatabaseOperation(owner, action)` to the DB package. The
server owns semantic labels. Queries retain execution ownership in their
completion closure.
- Added fixed owners at existing HTTP, delivery, budget, and execution
timing boundaries. Delivery work replaces the context of the producer
that woke it.
- Added complete call/row/error counters and completion wall durations
within the existing bounded window. Durations include waits and are not
CPU measurements.
- Sampled and bounded primitive-value sizing. Complex and oversized
values remain unmeasured. Known owners skip repeated stack extraction.
- Preserved the deadline, group limit, paced output, query outcomes, and
existing coverage exclusions. Updated the operator documentation.
- Added real PostgreSQL owner-isolation and prepared-query tests, server
scope tests, and plain bundled-runtime proof.
- Moved projection-test and benchmark full-response sizing into an
explicit test helper. Existing payload-size thresholds remain unchanged;
these synthetic checks do not use the production sampler.

## Verification

- Final-commit DB capture suites: 43 tests passed in 13.86 seconds
against the actual PostgreSQL driver, including concurrent owners,
prepared reuse, transaction failure, a dedicated client, sampling, and a
query crossing the deadline. DB typecheck passed.
- Server attribution and existing delivery/execution/budget suites: 53
tests passed. Final concurrent HTTP GET/JSON POST scope refinement: 5
tests passed.
- Runtime bundle suite: 8 existing tests passed. The new no-source-map
owner test passed after its fixture was corrected to use a driver
thenable. An ordinary native Promise can bypass an overridden `.then`;
the real PostgreSQL tests separately cover driver integration.
- Observer-only experiment: three alternating pairs per case on Node
24.22.2, macOS arm64, 3,000 calls per run after warm-up. For an
already-materialized synthetic JSON result, median capture CPU fell from
82.37 to 1.87 microseconds/call. For a 100-row primitive result, it fell
from 8.10 to 4.40 microseconds/call. Every result retained identity and
all calls were counted. The new diagnostic intentionally measures less
byte data; these are observer costs, not database latency or a hosted
application speedup. Disabled-case timings were below one
microsecond/call and too small for a performance conclusion.
- Final lifecycle regression: 28 unit tests and DB typecheck passed.
Closing the last capture disables and replaces owner storage;
overlapping captures retain it.
- Final-commit full recursive typecheck passed in 38.38 seconds and full
build passed in 40.81 seconds. The build stamp matches
`83ed4ba9cebd68d48929c46f15ab32d5c0b9687b`. Focused server attribution
tests also passed 5/5 before the test-helper-only migration. Full test
acceptance will use the repository's parallel CI gates; the unsharded
local command takes hours.
- Verification failures retained: initial sandbox runs could not open
local IPC/PostgreSQL listeners; permitted reruns exercised the real
services. One old test expected JSON serialization and was updated to
assert explicit unmeasured complex values. The first bundle fixture used
the wrong promise boundary, as described above. A retained-callback
regression also demonstrated that disabling and reusing the same
AsyncLocalStorage instance could resurrect an old owner; replacing the
instance after the last capture closes fixes that case.
- The first CI run found older projection tests consuming the previous
full-response fields. Those consumers now use the full-response test
helper, preserving their byte thresholds. The two complete affected
route suites plus helper tests passed 115/115 in 73.08 seconds. A
temporary full-row query negative control then failed the unchanged
2,048-byte limit at 5,000,812 bytes and was restored; five other service
suites passed 34/34 and the affected chat cases passed 3/3. All three
previously failing CI shards passed on the corrected head. A local
skill-list benchmark smoke check completed 255 captured queries with no
in-flight queries or overflow; this was integration verification under
concurrent test load, not a timing benchmark.
- Two final-head runner jobs lost communication with GitHub before
reporting a test result. One targeted retry of those jobs and their
dependent aggregate passed. All 53 final-head checks passed, with 3
intentional skips; previously passing suites were preserved.
- Hosted capture remains pending until the reviewed revision is deployed
and a bounded window is explicitly configured.

Reproduce the focused checks with Node 24 and the repository pnpm
version:

```sh
pnpm exec vitest run packages/db/src/response-capture.test.ts packages/db/src/response-capture-postgres.test.ts
pnpm --dir server exec vitest run --config vitest.config.ts src/__tests__/database-operation-attribution.test.ts scripts/bundle-runtime.test.mjs
pnpm -r typecheck
pnpm build
```

## Risks

- Owner context is active while a valid future capture window is armed,
up to 30 minutes before accounting starts. No-window and expired calls
take the direct path. Diagnostics still add bounded work while enabled.
- A nearest nested owner is reported. Broad `http.request` and
unattributed groups remain visible; this does not identify every service
callsite or SQL shape.
- The existing census excludes tagged/raw explicit-execute/streaming
paths and internal protocol commands. Its counts are not PostgreSQL
transaction totals.
- Completion wall time includes queue/database/network/scheduling waits.
Concurrent durations overlap. Sampled bytes exclude complex values,
large strings, and values beyond the sizing limits.
- Activation is startup-only. Operators must choose the window after
artifact preparation, allow rollout/warm-up time, and remove the expired
setting afterward.

## Model Used

OpenAI Codex, GPT-6 family, with code execution, repository inspection,
and parallel agents. The exact deployment model ID and context-window
size are not exposed in this session.

## Checklist

- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge

---------

Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
2026-11-02 12:12:21 -06:00
Devin FoleyandPaperclip 3536b3649f Read only task creation provenance fields (#17604)
Narrow saved-run provenance reads to current identity, scope, and typed legacy bindings. Preserve binding precedence, current viewer checks, and complete stored runs. Real PostgreSQL and route tests pass 23 cases; legacy full-context and type-coercion regressions are caught. Exact-head required CI is green; Greptile is 5/5 with Low impact and no unresolved comments.

Co-Authored-By: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
2026-10-25 06:30:25 -07:00