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PaperClipAI/doc/run-log-events.md
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DottaandPaperclip 505e1a5582 feat(cases): add persistent workflows with same-task agent handoffs (#16959)
## Thinking Path

> - Paperclip manages AI agents and their work.
> - An agent workflow needs persistent facts and a safe way to transfer
work.
> - Creating a task for each phase splits the objective, discussion,
workspace, and review policy.
> - A case can retain the facts while one primary task moves between
agents.
> - Transfers must survive process failure and preserve private access,
budgets, and completion gates.
> - This pull request adds durable case handoffs, native case tools, and
read-only case pages.
> - Prompts describe the workflow. Existing task controls decide when
work can run and finish.

## Linked Issues or Issue Description

**Problem or motivation**

Prompt-driven agent teams need a persistent record that can move through
triage, implementation, verification, and correction. Ordinary
reassignment does not provide a durable instruction, safe release
barrier, or recoverable delivery receipt for an agent handing off its
own running task.

**Proposed solution**

Extend standalone cases with one primary task, a descriptive phase,
retained access sources, and a handoff ledger. Apply assignments after
source execution and workspace settlement. Deliver each transfer through
the existing durable wake queue. Provide `create_case`, `read_case`,
`update_case`, and `handoff_case` in the native runner. Creation
requires kickoff and explicit workflow text. An explicit handoff to
`done` closes the case when normal task completion is accepted.

**Alternatives considered**

Do not add a workflow engine, filesystem queue, configured state graph,
or one task per phase. The workflow document combines transition prose
with an optional Mermaid `stateDiagram-v2` map. The server does not
execute the diagram. The Pipelines experiment removed on master stays
removed.

**Roadmap alignment**

This extends Agent Reviews and Approvals, Enforced Outcomes, Bounded Run
Recovery, and Activity Log attribution. Existing approval, review,
budget, privacy, workspace, and responsible-user rules remain
authoritative.

Related work: [ordinary handoff wake
recovery](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/15019). This
feature adds a separate persisted case-handoff receipt and release
barrier.

## What Changed

- Add case routing fields, retained access sources, durable handoff
history, delivery leases, and replay-safe migrations.
- Keep the same primary task across agent phases. Preserve each
returning agent's own session and the task's workspace.
- Fence outgoing mutations, wait for provider and workspace release, and
recover delivery without duplicate task comments or runs. Recheck
current assignment permissions as the original caller before applying a
delayed transfer. Scope a run Stop to that run’s own handoff intents, so
repeated old Stop requests preserve newer work. Cancelling terminal
intent without a source run also requires fenced current task ownership,
including native retries and preparation with an old checkout. For Cloud
callers, revalidate current stack membership with an uncached Cloud RPC
and derive owner elevation from the current managed setting.
- Keep case reads, documents, assets, Audit, and live events inside
retained task/project permissions.
- Add native case creation/read/update/handoff tools. Store required
workflow text and initial documents on the first task. Page oversized
case facts and referenced document bodies through the dedicated tool
with bounded UTF-8 JSON, current routing versions, snapshot conflicts,
and current source authorization on every page.
- Add read-only case lists and detail pages, task-style list controls,
compact dotted field tables, linked handoff tasks, and case filters in
Audit.
- Add native/legacy integration tests, migration/restart tests, browser
coverage, and bounded live receipt fixtures. Extend the trusted sandbox
condition to cover the new subscription fixture profile.
- Hide obsolete paused-agent warnings on completed or cancelled task
threads.
- Synchronize the company-switch settings test with React effects after
a CI failure. Preserve its security assertions and production remount
behavior.

## Verification

The branch directly includes master `9ef434fe79`. The required `ci /
verify` and `ci / e2e` gates pass on head `765fccd67c`. [Current-head
CI](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/actions/runs/39464348614)
passes typecheck, build, tests, and all eight browser shards. Security
checks pass. [Greptile gives this exact head
5/5](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/16959#issuecomment-6291156549),
with no unresolved review threads. The optional Paperclip Review check
remains queued because its assigned agent is paused. It is not a
required branch check. No check result was overridden.

Local workspace typecheck and build pass after the master merge, along
with database migration checks, token gates, map checks, Storybook
catalog checks, and the Copilot profile identity check. Standard builds
refresh Runner vendor output. Focused checks pass 2,008
API/paging/context tests and 7 strict case protocol tests. The final
commit changes one test fixture only; its ten tests, UI typecheck, and
token gates pass. No production source changed in that commit.

On current head `765fccd67c`, all **194 critical workflow tests**
executed and passed with no skipped tests in those files:

- 38 Stop/ownership tests, including board completion intent, native
retries, stale Stop, and preparation with an old checkout.
- 2 actual legacy process/HTTP handoff tests, including scratch failure,
a closed-stdio child that continues writing, and recovery through a
fresh worker after the process group stops.
- 5 migration tests, including SQL column metadata, preserved null
authority context, and all six prior-numbering receipts.
- 3 process-settlement and 5 scratch tests.
- 88 handoff-service, 18 heartbeat handoff, and 21 native case-tool
integration tests.
- 7 bounded case/document-read projection tests and 7 strict
protocol-contract tests.

The current CI checkout was `fed65d49`, merging `765fccd67c` into master
`9ef434fe79`. Its new document regressions reconstruct exact
Unicode/escaped bodies and revisions through real native authority and
authenticated HTTP with generic API tools disabled. They cover
case-owned, primary-task, and linked-task documents; routing on every
page; stale document snapshots; access loss and unlinking;
unrelated/foreign/private sources; system documents; and quarantined
content. Active-task document tools retain their existing behavior.
These are current-head test results from the first CI attempt; the
browser-only retry did not rerun these suites.

The full `64fdd3403f` CI failed one separate settings test: after a
company switch, it observed an unsettled API-key draft. The production
component and test were unchanged from prior green source. Production
switches remount both keyed settings layers; the test directly reused an
unkeyed view and used a timer tick instead of waiting for React effects.
The final commit replaces that fixture synchronization with React `act`.
The exact secret-clearing assertions and all timeouts remain unchanged.
The original assertion failure remains recorded; no unchanged retry was
used. The narrow unchanged baseline and fixed fixture each pass 10
tests.

The upstream result-paging merge preserves case capture namespaces and
current asset privacy. Its API integration suite executed 39 of 41 tests
successfully, with two skipped; the optional assigned-result PRP
integration test was skipped. Neither skipped suite is counted in the
194 critical tests or as live provider proof.

All 361 upstream migration entries and SQL bodies remain unchanged. Six
case migrations follow master as 0363–0368 with identical SQL hashes.
Official Drizzle generators produced the combined metadata and five
retained snapshots. Generation reports no schema changes, and the
snapshot drift test passes. The earlier `ce361ae5d0` CI passed on
attempt 1, including its then-current 179 critical tests. Fresh review
later identified unusable document references with generic API tools
disabled; the bounded document reads and ten additional authenticated
HTTP tests address that finding.

The full local `pnpm test:run` attempt was cancelled after this Mac
exhausted PostgreSQL semaphore capacity; it is **not** counted as a
pass. Later database attempts also stopped before assertions or skipped,
including one sandbox socket denial. Two original stale-Stop regressions
did reproduce the bug against the old source. A REST serialization
assertion passed after two preserved database-startup failures. No test
timeout was increased. All 194 assertions listed above executed and
passed in current-head CI. The complete 385-file, 3,963-test UI shard
also passed after the fixture repair.

A configured-provider receipt workflow passed 13 backend checks across
triage → implementation → verification → correction → done, using one
task and four work runs. The saved receipt is revision 2 with total 6
USD; case and task both closed. The original canonical attempt remains
failed because its browser assertion confused the terminal destination
with completed-task tooltips. The corrected full browser verifier passed
on the same retained database and original runs, with no additional
provider calls. The last clean-build browser readback is on
`6a86c54a53`; later changes affect recovery, authorization, bounded
reads, and settlement. Accounted work cost is a $1.010574 rate-card
estimate; provider billing and setup-probe usage are unavailable.

Copilot profile 49 passed the unchanged seven-fixture private protocol
pack (46/46 checks, no retries) and the product file-edit canary after
master's completion-replay change. All 60 bound implementation hashes
remain unchanged on the current source. Historical profile-47/48
identities and results remain intact. See the [profile-49 compatibility
record](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/blob/codex/persistent-case-handoffs/doc/plans/2026-10-20-copilot-completion-recovery-compatibility-v49.json).
This is bounded compatibility evidence, not a fresh full matrix,
installed-package product test, or Daytona rollout.

Preserved CI failures and retries:

- On `20662930ac`, Slack managed setup failed a five-second success
assertion after reload. Its test/application path was unchanged from a
prior green head. One unchanged-source retry passed all 25 tests in that
shard; no source or timeout changed.
- On `9402b4f17a`, two CI workers received shutdown signals at 15:24:19
UTC. Neither log had an assertion failure before interruption. One
unchanged-source retry of each passed all Runner static checks and all
32 tests in browser shard 6; both aggregates passed. The next head,
`7b4374edaf`, passed all CI without retries.
- On `295f289b5a`, serialized shard 9 timed out during its first
device-login test, then the next test found an active login lease.
Direct login/test paths were unchanged from a prior green head. Cold
import plus a timed-out async body using the next test's mutable
actor/store is the supported fixture-race explanation; no request trace
proves that sequence. The original failure remains recorded. One
unchanged-source retry passed all 294 tests in 19 files, including all
41 device-login tests. No login source or timeout changed. The
subsequent `ce361ae5d0` CI passed without retries.
- On `64fdd3403f`, one company-switch settings assertion observed an
unsettled draft. The final test-only commit uses React `act` without
changing assertions, timeouts, or production code. On `765fccd67c`, all
ten settings tests and the complete 385-file, 3,963-test UI shard
passed.
- On `765fccd67c`, browser shard 3 completed the split-handoff
assertions, then cleanup received HTTP 500 from run cancellation after a
one-second PostgreSQL row-lock timeout. The extra chat run was reporting
completed work while teardown began. Cleanup stopped before restoring a
global experiment flag, causing a later assertion to fail. Relevant
production and test paths are unchanged from an earlier green commit.
Stop's lock order is consistent, and no nested self-lock was found; the
exact PostgreSQL blocker was not recorded. One unchanged-shard retry
passed. The original failure, trace, and downstream flag failure remain
recorded. No Stop implementation, cleanup assertion, or timeout changed.
The retry supports intermittent cleanup contention; it does not identify
the original blocking transaction.


## Risks

- Local process transfers require host-owned PID/group absence. Missing
or uncertain termination evidence keeps delivery pending, independently
of scratch setup.
- Handoff admission and task cancellation share execution ownership. New
regression tests cover temporary holds, late source writes, and
uncertain provider termination.
- Retained private sources use an intersection of existing permissions.
This intentionally fails closed when a source is missing or an existing
task cannot preserve that boundary.
- Migrations add tables and indexes. They preserve master history and
can replay over prior feature installs. Migration 0368 adds nullable
internal authorization provenance with no default or authority backfill.
Historical transfers still awaiting release without this context fail
closed; an operator must cancel them and request a new handoff.
- Delayed Cloud handoffs depend on the current Cloud membership RPC. An
unavailable, ambiguous, expired, or mismatched response holds the
handoff for retry; it does not reuse cached authority or grant access.
- Bounded reads reload and reauthorize the selected projection per page.
Underlying work grows with the data size and number of pages. Changed
data or routing requires restarting from offset zero without the old
snapshot.
- Phase names and workflow diagrams remain advisory. They do not satisfy
review or approval gates.
- This is a large, cross-cutting PR. The maintainer requested one PR for
the whole feature; the commits separate data, runtime, UI, and
qualification work.

## Model Used

OpenAI Codex, GPT-6 family, with tool use, code execution, and delegated
code review. The exact deployment model ID and context-window size were
not exposed in the session. Live fixture agents used the explicitly
configured provider model recorded in their test evidence.

## 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>
2026-10-20 12:46:14 -05:00

36 KiB
Raw Blame History

Run-Log Events

Run-log events write to the heartbeat_run_events table (packages/db/src/schema/heartbeat_run_events.ts:6-20). They are not Paperclip Telemetry events, and they are not OpenTelemetry exports. A run-log event needs no operator endpoint.

Startup reuse evidence

run.startup.reuse uses schema paperclip.startup-reuse.v1. Each receipt names one layer: environment (the lease), workspace, runner, provider_process, or provider_session. Its state is reused, fresh, unknown, or not_applicable. Reasons use a closed set: verified_reuse, created, replacement, not_found, expired, identity_mismatch, resume_failed, configuration_changed, tools_changed, workspace_changed, cache_miss, not_applicable, and evidence_missing. No paths, identifiers, configuration values, or exception messages enter these fields.

Provider-process receipts carry a cumulative providerLaunchCount for the run. null means unobserved; zero requires a physical launch observer. Direct ACPX processes count initial launches and respawns, including launches during retries. On the remote process-session bridge, ACPX observes the host relay rather than the sandbox provider. Provider-process reuse and launch counts stay unknown on that transport. Native Runner session events establish session continuity, but do not establish provider-process reuse or its launch count. Those values stay unknown without physical evidence. The final ACPX receipt does not wait for persistence, so a stalled diagnostic sink cannot hold the staging lease. The existing successful runner.process.launch performance receipt establishes a fresh Runner process, independently of provider-session continuity.

The Product E2E result stores startupReuse by run, and its dashboard displays each layer, its reason, and the launch count. warm requires all applicable layers to be reused and zero observed provider launches. cold requires all applicable layers to be fresh. Some reuse with other fresh or missing evidence is partial_reuse; otherwise the label is unknown. Fresh decisions dominate later reuse receipts within a run. Legacy runs without receipts retain unknown layers and a null launch count. Session IDs and follow-up turns never establish warmth. These events stay in the local run log; they add no first-party Telemetry.

Ordinary event persistence

Events without a native source identity or retry-exhaustion receipt use one atomic PostgreSQL statement. The statement checks the stored run's company and agent, allocates its next sequence, and inserts the event. An insertion failure also rolls back the sequence allocation. The returned row uses the existing column decoders, including the lossless payload codec. Callers still wait for the durable write before they publish or acknowledge the event. Native-source replay and retry-exhaustion deduplication retain their existing transaction path.

Legacy case handoff cleanup

legacy.case_handoff_cleanup_intent records local cleanup ownership before dispatch, then binds it atomically to the observed process identity on spawn. It includes the host, controller/run generation, PID/group/start identity, and owned scratch descriptor or explicit null. It does not prove termination. legacy.case_handoff_cleanup_verified records the later stop proof before scratch removal. Restart recovery rechecks process, controller, workspace and ownership gates before completing cleanup and releasing the handoff. These controller receipts are cleanup bookkeeping, not evidence of agent task progress, and are excluded from run-liveness action counts. The controller authors both events on the system stream. Adapter ingestion rejects the reserved legacy.case_handoff_ namespace. These events stay in the instance run log and add no first-party Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

Provider-pack preparation timing

The existing run.performance.span event also records provider_pack.select, provider_pack.discover, provider_pack.verify, provider_pack.verify_preinstalled, provider_pack.link_preinstalled, provider_pack.clear_stale, provider_pack.upload, and provider_pack.verify_uploaded. Selection records stateSource as staged, preinstalled, or uploaded. Its closed reason is verified_pack_reused or cached_packs_unverified. A verification failure describes an unusable candidate; it does not identify a particular compatibility mismatch or a failed run. Harness startup also records harness_state.inspect, harness_state.path_check, and harness_state.launch_material for remote state inspection and fresh launch material. These events retain the existing schema and carry no paths or exception strings. They also become native Observability spans only with an operator OTLP endpoint.

Native PRP Run-Log Events

auth.credentials.updated is a runner-produced PRP event for a change to a supported credential store, including account identity changes and later token refreshes on the new account. The bundled transport awaits a host commit callback before acknowledging delivery, including during warm idle and provider cleanup. The callback writes directly to the bound run through the shared run-log writer. Its separate credential source namespace avoids collisions with driver-normalized source sequences and deduplicates retries using the original PRP event identity. The original envelope is retained in prpEvent. Its payload contains only a provider, an opaque binding ID, a revision, and a detection method. It contains no credentials, account identity, file path, or credential fingerprint. The consumer can use the event to read the updated credentials through its existing private credential channel. This run-log event stays in the instance database.

native.recovery.execution_reclaimed records an atomic same-run recovery claim that restores a released task execution binding. The claim locks the task, coordinator, and original run in that order. It preserves the assignee and checks current execution/checkout owners, other live work, dependencies, pause holds, and stop/successor records before restoring the binding. Attachment authorization keeps its existing requirement for that exact binding. Skipped retry candidates wait 30 seconds before recheck so they cannot fill every bounded claim batch. Undated retries sort first. A failed candidate cannot discard earlier committed claims. Queued waiters do not block the original execution owner from recovery; they still wait for that owner to settle before normal queue promotion. This is local run-log data.

Fresh remote Codex model substitution emits runner.model_fallback on the system stream with warn severity. Its payload contains requestedModel, effectiveModel, and codexCliVersion. It records a preparation choice before provider launch, not a failed turn or a retry. The same substitution appears as a system warning in the task conversation. It remains local run-log data.

The hidden native coordinator writes each validated PRP event to the bound run's existing event stream before it acknowledges the runner. The row keeps the PRP eventType, source instance, source event ID, source sequence, protocol schema version, and a SHA-256 digest of the canonical stored envelope. Its payload is { "prpEvent": <canonical PRP event> }.

Native API tool events omit HTTP request and response bodies from durable history. This includes serialized provider contentItems, legacy HTTP receipts and call_api arguments. Saved receipts retain the operation and call IDs, success flag, HTTP status and content type when present. The body becomes ***REDACTED***, with apiPayloadRedacted: true and apiPayloadSha256, a SHA-256 digest of the original payload. These digests distinguish duplicate events from changed payloads; they cannot recover omitted bodies for debugging or replay. The model receives the original authorized response. Credential-bearing mutation receipts use encrypted storage separately from this run log.

Checkpoints and completion records apply the same redaction. Completion retries compare stored and expected payloads through the control-plane port's idempotent normalizeReplayPayload projection, so a saved redacted result can be confirmed without restoring API bodies. Ports without a projection compare their original payloads. Repeated redaction preserves the original digest and detects changed private payloads.

The native runtime passes this projection through backend recovery to the Codex driver. Recovery compares saved semantic results and turn fingerprints with provider history through the same representation. A private body change retains its distinct digest and fails recovery; an unchanged body does not require restoring its plaintext into the checkpoint.

PostgreSQL JSONB cannot represent NUL (U+0000), which can occur in command output such as Vite virtual-module paths. The run-event payload column uses a lossless storage codec for these events: the JSONB projection renders NUL as the literal \u0000, and the reserved $paperclipRunEventJsonV1 field contains the original serialized JSON as a doubly escaped string. Ordinary payloads retain their existing representation. Drizzle reads restore the exact stored payload before replay, hash validation, redaction, or API presentation. SQL queries can still inspect ordinary routing fields in the projection; raw SQL readers of the whole payload must apply decodeRunEventPayload. The column remains JSONB and requires no schema migration.

The writer locks the native heartbeat_runs row and allocates the existing per-run seq cursor. A byte-equivalent retry reuses the first row; a changed retry or source-sequence gap is rejected. Company, issue, agent, run, session, and runner-source bindings must match the persisted native run. Bootstrap tickets, reconnect leases, authentication proofs, encryption keys, and raw credential material are never written to the run log.

These records remain run-log events. They do not create an OpenTelemetry or Paperclip Telemetry export, and legacy adapters do not use this writer.

Semantic Settlement Diagnostics and Retry Logs

Before interrupting a Codex turn, the runner durably records a harness.diagnostic event with code provider_interrupt_requested, the stop reason, provider turn ID, and pending tool call IDs. A harmless identical result replay records semantic_tool_result_duplicate with warning severity, call ID, operation ID, and result digest. It does not fail the task or create a user attention request. A true conflict includes the call and operation IDs and both result digests in its error; full arguments belong to the canonical semantic input record, not the error message.

Incomplete close emits the bounded native_session_settlement_incomplete runner diagnostic. Its evidence includes runner suspension, provider drain, final provider state, pending call/operation/source-event IDs and input digests, and incomplete result-delivery command IDs and statuses. If execution and cleanup both fail, execution retains its original error identity and cleanup is attached as cleanupError.

Semantic settlement also includes up to 20 content-free failure records, with the call ID, operation ID, stage (dispatch or persist_result), and cause. Causes distinguish an oversized command, a full command journal, known storage errors, dispatcher rejection, and other persistence failures. Exception messages and tool results are excluded. These diagnostics do not authorize replay of an operation whose outcome is unknown.

Instruction writes also commit an agent.instruction_write_attempted activity row and a run-scoped instructionToolAttempts entry before permitting the filesystem effect. They retain the call ID, operation ID, and input digest, not instruction text. A later transaction rollback cannot erase this attempt proof. A missing success or definite pre-write failure receipt means the outcome is unknown, even if the current file contains the requested text. Known validation and stale-base failures are saved under the attempt's failure entry and replay their original status, message, and details without a new write. Unknown outcomes remain blocked until reconciled; a committed receipt with a lost acknowledgement can replay its exact result.

The NDJSON output log appends across repeated begin calls for one run. Each new handle adds an attemptId to its lines. If the local file is absent and a durable S3 mirror exists, begin restores that prefix before appending. A failed restore must not replace the mirror with an empty or partial attempt. Publishing a restored prefix uses an atomic create-if-absent operation, so a concurrent restore cannot overwrite lines another attempt has already appended. Earlier attempts therefore remain available for incident diagnosis. Existing records without attemptId remain readable.

These records use the instance run log and its configured storage. They add no Paperclip Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

Omitted Unsafe Workspace Export

workspace_export_omitted is an informational system event in the local run log. Its payload is { "reason": "restore_unsafe_archive" }, with "legacy": true when recovering an unsafe failure from an older controller. It records that native finalization discarded an unsafe export and continued with the accepted result. It contains no archive names, link targets, or raw error details. It does not create a task warning, recovery action, Telemetry event, or OpenTelemetry export.

Native Restart Recovery Run-Log Event

Paperclip writes a native.recovery.transition event for every native restart classification and for graceful restart suspension. This immutable run-log record lets operators reconstruct recovery decisions without exporting data to Paperclip Telemetry or OpenTelemetry.

The payload contains the restart kind, recovery request id when one exists, runner disposition, and the controller generation and provider attempt for a claimed recovery. Live-runner adoption also records the runner PID, process group, and process-start fingerprint. A non-claim disposition records a bounded reason instead. Graceful suspension records the signal and confirms that it did not create a retry run.

The event never includes bootstrap tickets, reconnect leases, authentication proofs, encryption keys, environment variables, provider credentials, command arguments, or an unsanitized stderr stream. Detailed failed-attempt diagnostics remain in the bounded native_run_finalizations.recovery_history ledger.

native.remote_runner_recovery_failed records the closed stage and reason when remote identity verification fails, including admission failures before the execution coordinator opens. Unavailable probes are retried within a shared 30-second deadline; identity conflicts are not retried. The event distinguishes an unreadable identity from a confirmed missing process and contains no command output or credentials. Saved-state read failures use state_read_failed; malformed saved JSON uses state_invalid. It does not itself authorize replacement or cleanup.

For a prepared remote workspace interrupted before its first executor claim, that ledger records remote_execution_never_claimed with a bootstrap_incomplete disposition. The provider attempt remains zero during classification; the executor increments it before starting provider work.

For a local Codex turn lost while runnerd was stopped, the canonical turn.failed event retains error.code: "provider_turn_lost_on_restore" and error.recoverable: true. It records the interrupted turn, not a final task outcome. There is no synthesized result for that interruption. An admitted same-session continuation emits its own turn.submitted, accepted turn ID, and terminal events; only the final outcome closes the run. Reconstructed thread history retains the original error so reconciliation and live delivery agree.

Native Local Process Stop Evidence

The server writes native.local_process_stopped in the same transaction that clears a local run's process identity, after it verifies that its PID and process group are absent. The payload contains only those process IDs. Remote process IDs are never checked against the control-plane host.

The server writes native.process_start_requested before a backend can spawn, and native.process_identity_recorded when it stores a new native process identity. Either invalidates an earlier local stop receipt, including a crash before the new PID callback. Continuation admission accepts only the latest server-authored event among these three types; provider source events cannot supply stop authority. These records stay in the local run log and do not add Telemetry or OpenTelemetry data.

Verified Local Codex Replacement Evidence

The server writes native.stopped_text_turn_verified in the same transaction that schedules a fresh successor for a stopped local Codex run. It records the runner and provider process identities, retained-state digests, provider thread and turn IDs, and IDs of exactly receipted task-completion calls. The server first checks the complete turn inventory, process-stop receipt, and execution binding. Unknown actions or changed retained state prevent this event and replacement.

The record documents why the old execution can be retired. It does not make the old session resumable, rewrite provider files, or authorize replay on its own. It remains in the local run log and adds no Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

Sandbox Startup Run-Log Event

Paperclip writes one run.startup.step event to the run log for each bring-up step. This event is a run-log record, not a first-party telemetry event. The generated telemetry contract does not cover it, so this section is its canonical contract.

The event payload carries only three fields.

Field Type Meaning
step string The bring-up step name, for example stage.sync.
durationMs number The wall time of the step. A skipped step reports 0.
outcome string The step outcome (ok, skipped, or failed).

The event no longer carries the per-step round-trip count or the provider duration fields. It dropped roundTrips, providerExecMs, providerGetMs, createRuntimeMs, and ensureSessionMs. The startup spans in doc/observability.md carry that detail now. The sandbox.exec child spans hold the round-trip and provider durations. The acp.handshake step span holds the create-runtime and ensure-session sub-times.

To read the detailed timing, use the startup spans. The spans need an OTLP endpoint. A run with no endpoint keeps only the three run-log fields above.

Run Phase Timing Run-Log Event

Paperclip writes one run.phase.timing event to the run log for each run-lifecycle phase. This event is a run-log record, not a first-party telemetry event. The generated telemetry contract does not cover it, so this section is its canonical contract. The producer is emitRunPhaseTiming in packages/adapter-utils/src/acpx-engine/startup-timing.ts.

The event payload carries only three fields.

Field Type Meaning
phase string The run-lifecycle phase name from the closed allowlist below.
durationMs number The wall time of the phase. A negative or a non-finite value clamps to 0.
outcome string The phase outcome (ok or failed).

The phase field is one member of a closed, low-cardinality allowlist. The producer drops any event whose phase name is outside this allowlist, so a free-form label never reaches the run log. The allowlist has twelve phase names.

Phase Meaning
place_workspace Place the run workspace.
start_transport Start the agent transport.
create_runtime Create the agent runtime.
ensure_session Ensure the agent session exists.
configure_session Configure the agent session.
prepare_turn Prepare the turn.
turn Run the turn.
end_session End the agent session.
settle_reuse Settle the session for reuse.
stop_transport Stop the agent transport.
sync_back Sync the workspace back.
release_staging_lease Release the staging lease.

The payload never carries a command, an argument, a path, an environment value, or a raw identifier. The event rides the ctx.onEvent run-event bridge and is run-log-only. It needs no OTLP endpoint.

Workspace Restore and Settled Run Measurements

The heartbeat controller writes these records with eventType: "lifecycle", stream: "system", and level: "info". The event name below is its message and its payload's phase. They remain in the instance run log and add no Paperclip Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

Event Payload fields besides phase Meaning
workspace_checkpoint mode, scannedEntries, changedFiles, payloadBytes Metrics for a validated sparse checkpoint, or a full restore fallback.
workspace.restore durationMs Wall time around native workspace restoration.
task.run.measured durationMs, outcome, durableSettlement Wall time through terminal owner cleanup, with the persisted terminal run status and durableSettlement: true.

For workspace_checkpoint, mode is "sparse" or "full". Sparse metrics count snapshot entries in scannedEntries, regular files in the validated downloaded payload in changedFiles, and their total bytes in payloadBytes. Deleted entries and symlinks do not add to the regular-file count or byte total. Full fallback reports all three counts as null: unavailable, not zero. A run can emit multiple checkpoint records while restoring its repositories. These payloads contain no paths, filenames, file contents, or credentials.

workspace.restore is emitted when the timed restoration exits, including an exception. It has no outcome field and does not by itself prove restore success. Its producer is the native workspace sync onPhase callback.

task.run.measured is emitted only after the controller observes a terminal run with no remaining native runner ownership. Its duration starts at startedAt, or createdAt if the run never started, and includes preparation, execution, finalization, and cleanup. It is not model-only time; the creation-time fallback also includes time spent queued. outcome is the actual terminal status, such as succeeded, failed, or cancelled. Provider turn completion can precede this settlement record. The record does not imply exactly-once emission across controller recovery, and failure to write it is logged without changing the already-settled outcome.

System notices and final replies

Automatic comments with a stored system_notice presentation, including workspace-ready notices, remain available as progress information. They do not occupy the run's final reply slot. Final response selection still preserves ordinary explicit agent comments and excludes receipt-bound generated progress.

ACP terminal failure diagnostics

The shared ACP adapter engine preserves typed terminal session failures in the run error, the acpx.error transcript record, and heartbeat_runs.result_json.terminalSessionFailure. The structured diagnostic contains the provider category, title, and details. It works when raw provider tracing is disabled. The existing UI and CLI render the diagnostic as an error, not as assistant output or an automatic task response. Issue continuation summaries and session-compaction handoffs retain only the generic failure category; provider diagnostic prose is not copied into prompts.

Both pinned ACPX patches pass complete title and detail strings to the in-memory callback. The engine redacts configured environment values (including resolved secrets with arbitrary variable names), launch environment values outside a closed allowlist of public process settings, known boolean flags, and run identifiers, connection URL passwords, the run API key, and common credential forms before truncation. It removes control characters, retains line breaks for JSON and stack traces, and preserves up to 4,096 title characters and 24,576 detail characters. These bounds also keep the escaped transcript JSON below the server's 64 KiB chunk limit. Longer fields end with an explicit omission count and appear in truncatedFields. The error message includes the same sanitized text. Ordinary run retrieval preserves the bounded structured diagnostic even when multibyte text or other result fields exceed the result byte budget. In that reduced response, title and details have 1 KiB and 8 KiB byte budgets, including truncation markers. retrievalTruncated directs callers to the full adapter-bounded text in the run error or transcript. Other provider metadata and action payloads are not copied.

Recovery still uses the typed failure category and the adapter's existing classifier. Provider warnings do not become failures, and timeouts or lost control channels keep their authoritative failure messages. These diagnostics stay in the instance's run records and configured run-log storage. They add no Paperclip Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

The sandbox duplex transport also writes one run-log event as one of its three sinks. See the Sandbox Duplex Transport Instrumentation section in the Observability contract.

Execution recovery

Cancelled runs retain resultJson.cancellation: a closed source label (operator, queued_message, shutdown, provider, transport, control_plane, controller_lease, or unknown), whether the stop was expected, the initiator, reason, and recording time. Recorded stop intent survives adapter completion. controller_lease means the host stopped its own legacy adapter after it lost the durable controller lease; the reason names a closed cause (renewal_rejected, renewal_deadline, or renewal_error). A lease lost during run setup (for example a rejected renewal while preparing the workspace) settles the run failed with error code controller_lease_lost, the same controller_lease cancellation evidence, and executionRecovery.providerWorkStarted: false. Recovery retries it as transient infrastructure instead of blocking on setup_failed. A setup-phase error after provider dispatch began keeps setup_failed, so started work is never retried. The local lifecycle event includes this evidence. Started cancellations without an expected stop are also reported to Sentry; its cancellation diagnostics contain only source, expectedness, initiator type, and the closed lease-loss cause, never initiator IDs or reason text. A lease loss also records resultJson.controllerLeaseLoss, including a loss during setup that fails the run before adapter dispatch. It holds the closed cause and the watchdog timings in milliseconds: sinceRenewalMs (since the last successful renewal), renewalPendingMs (age of a renewal query still in flight, or null), deadlineLateMs (how late the deadline callback ran, for renewal_deadline only), and renewalCount. A long renewalPendingMs points at a stalled database query; a long deadlineLateMs points at a blocked event loop. Failure reports carry these bounded numbers and the cause label only. Historical ambiguous cancellations stay unknown and do not authorize replay.

Provider tool-definition validation failures use provider_tool_definition_invalid / configuration. Automatic retry and continuation recovery stop until the configuration is repaired. Classification uses raw provider diagnostics in memory before redaction; stored diagnostics remain redacted and bounded.

Provider identity diagnostics remain in the local run log. They record the notification method, expected and received thread/turn identifiers, and the classification (root, verified descendant, stale, unrelated informational, or invalid authoritative). They omit the original provider payload and credentials. Repeated informational notices are bounded.

Ignored unrelated Codex notifications use harness.diagnostic with code codex_unrelated_information. The payload retains only the bounded provider method and expected/received thread and turn identifiers. Account updates, skill changes, and unrelated thread information do not create a provider notice in chat. Chat also omits the matching notice stored by older runners. Real provider warnings and errors remain visible.

Recovery lifecycle events retain the original structured failure code, retry attempt, next retry time, and predecessor/successor identifiers. Durable status delivery uses an idempotency marker; delivery grants no provider authority. Failed publication is retried without repeating provider work. These records are not first-party Telemetry.

An unstarted legacy conversation retry waiting for execution cleanup retains resultJson.executionWait with the issue, blocking run, and execution_owner_active cause. A local lifecycle event records the wait and the unchanged scheduled retry attempt once per blocking run. Repeated scheduler checks update the same retry row without repeating that event. Promotion removes this ownership-wait marker after cleanup; other execution holds retain their existing dispatch gates.

If execution-continuation setup finds that a task no longer exists, is closed, or its owner changed, the existing cancellation settlement records continuation_task_ownership_changed. The run and wake request become cancelled before adapter dispatch, with the run-log message stale execution continuation cancelled before dispatch. Immediate recovery is suppressed. Missing source context, authorization failures, and other setup errors retain their failure classification. An untyped error with the same message is also still a failure; cancellation requires the typed ownership guard.

Bounded retry exhaustion writes one lifecycle receipt per run, retry reason, scheduled attempt, and retry limit. Repeated or concurrent recovery checks reuse that receipt, including receipts from earlier builds, without advancing the event sequence or publishing another live event. Attention reads select the latest matching receipt in PostgreSQL and project only the run's issue/task identifiers from its context, so historical duplicate receipts cannot multiply run contexts in server memory. Existing duplicate events do not require deletion or migration.

Workspace restore failures

Legacy adapter results can carry workspaceRestoreFailure with the code restore_permission_denied, restore_lock_timeout, restore_unsafe_archive, or restore_failed. The heartbeat records workspace_restore_failed and keeps the run failed and the workspace-finalization barrier closed. Available output, usage, session metadata, and the previous execution outcome survive settlement. executionBeforeRestore retains the earlier error code, exit code, signal, and timeout flag. The ordinary redacted error field retains an earlier error message.

The chat reports the restore phase separately from a missing final response. A saved-plan link requires a stored document and its run-bound revision or a matching run-bound review record. Older unclassified failures use neutral wording. Diagnostics show only a validated relative member path, never an archive link target or host path.

An unsafe archive or an outbound confinement refusal keeps the existing execution recovery hold, including across conversation resets. It cannot start another model turn until an operator uses the existing recovery action to record executionReconciliation with workspaceRepairEvidence (20–12000 characters). This evidence must describe verified safe staging or repair for the referenced failed run. It does not grant plan approval. Saved comments, document revisions, and confirmation IDs and states stay unchanged. Recovery uses the existing delivery identity and links the successor to the original failed run. Repair does not reset the automatic retry budget. Transient failures retain the existing bounded retry policy. Archive confinement remains required.

Sandbox restore tasks also write a Workspace restore diagnostic line to the run log on failure. phase is workspace or asset, so a failed staged-asset copy-back (such as credentials) can be distinguished from workspace restoration. The line contains only an allowlisted OS/transport errorCode (otherwise unknown), an optional numeric HTTP error status, and an optional bounded process exit code. Up to four nested causes are inspected. Messages, URLs, filesystem paths, asset names, credentials, and response bodies are excluded. Every failed outbound task emits its own diagnostic; nested repository failures are logged once by the enclosing workspace task. The original error and restore safety policy are unchanged. These lines stay in the instance run log and its configured durable storage, and are not new first-party telemetry events.

Native sandbox environmentSyncOut errors preserve allowlisted error codes and bounded HTTP/exit statuses across worker RPC for this diagnostic line. The host revalidates the envelope and keeps the original failure and recovery policy. Provider messages, paths, response bodies, credentials, and arbitrary error data are not copied into the new envelope. Older workers can still report unknown.

The optional step identifies the failed restore operation. For phase=workspace and step=git_integration, gitCommand identifies one fixed command family (rev_parse, symbolic_ref, merge_base, merge_tree, commit_tree, update_ref, or log). gitFailureKind is merge_conflict, invalid_object, ref_conflict, permission_denied, or unknown; it is a bounded diagnostic clue, not a new recovery or retry decision. Only supported exit/OS codes and recognized Git messages produce a specific classification. No command arguments, stderr, filenames, repository URLs, or ref names are saved. The same closed fields persist in workspaceRestoreDiagnostic and are revalidated before projection into an enabled Sentry failure report.

Codex resume usage snapshot

The native runner retains a bounded local harness.diagnostic event with code codex_resume_usage_snapshot. It identifies thread/tokenUsage/updated as resume_usage_snapshot, retains the reported thread and completed-turn IDs, and records cumulative usage counters. It does not include provider credentials or message content. The event establishes the accounting baseline; it is not a new billable usage receipt or a user-facing provider warning. Other provider identity checks remain in force.

AI subscription contention

A fresh task execution cannot enter this wait. A run that already entered this wait writes an informational lifecycle event to the local run log. Its payload contains only retryScheduled, a boolean that reports whether the scheduler created a retry. The message distinguishes an automatic retry from work that is no longer eligible. This pre-provider wait records ai_connection_busy on the cancelled run and does not consume the provider-failure retry allowance. The event contains no credentials and creates no Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

Managed Agent File Save Receipts

The server writes instruction_save after managed file collection or a warm turn checkpoint. The payload includes the save state, instruction entry path, storage warning, and error code/message. Agent-directory receipts identify contract: "agent_files" and the applied candidate hash. Legacy instruction receipts instead identify the saved revision.

A validated warm checkpoint reports saved or unchanged, even though its working directory remains owned by the live session. An unstable checkpoint reports pending_collection until stopped collection produces a final receipt. Successful checkpoints can include checkpointStats: scannedEntries, hashedBytes, copiedFiles, and copiedBytes. These counts describe that capture, not cumulative traffic or an atomic snapshot of background writers. They contain no file contents. The receipt remains in the instance run log; it adds no Paperclip Telemetry or OpenTelemetry export.

If instruction-copy release throws, instruction_cleanup records a warning with payload { "state": "deferred" }. The existing working-copy recovery sweep retries cleanup. This event preserves the run outcome and does not claim a file save; instruction_save remains authoritative for collection. The event contains no raw exception, host path, file contents, or lock-owner metadata. Failure to write the warning must not replace the provider outcome or stop lease release.

Agent observability availability

agent_observability.unavailable is one warning for a preparation snapshot that cannot apply company export settings. Its payload contains only a closed reason and the settings revision. It carries no endpoint, credential, secret reference or resolver error. Recording the diagnostic never contacts a destination.