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feat(dx): agent-ready error contract for the DevEx review skills
Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
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# Agent-ready error messages
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gstack's DX reviews (`/plan-devex-review` Pass 3, the DX phase of `/autoplan`, and
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`/devex-review` Step 3) score every error message for the reader that usually meets it
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first: an AI agent running unattended. It reads the message literally, cannot ask what was
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meant, and will retry or give up based on what the message says. This page is the contract
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those reviews cite (rubric `agent-ready-v1`). The text below is generated from
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`lib/dx-error-contract.ts`; edit it there.
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| Item | The error gives the reader |
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|------|----------------------------|
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| **what** | The operation that failed and the actual values (input, path, id) that caused it. |
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| **fix** | On the first or last line, never mid-chain: an exact command, flag or edit; or, when no safe agent repair exists, the precise thing a human must provide (credential, approval, decision). A precise escalation is a complete fix. A fix counts only when it is safe and authorized: it does not bypass a consent, safety or sandbox boundary, does not tell the agent to run text copied from untrusted output, and quotes arguments correctly. |
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| **recovery** | Retry unchanged, fix and retry, do X first, or ask a human; side effects (none, partial, complete, unknown); for an unknown outcome, how to reconcile (status command, idempotency key) before retrying; a retry bound, then escalate. |
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| **code** | A stable code plus a doc anchor or `--explain` target. Prose may change; codes may not. |
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| **context** | Versions, the config in effect, relevant env var names (never values), the underlying dependency error, not swallowed. Remote services give caller-safe facts only (parameter, API version, request id). |
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| **trace** | Unexpected failures only. A local CLI, SDK or skill prints a compact trace or the path of a file holding the full one (full under `--verbose`/`DEBUG`); a remote service returns a correlation id and keeps internals in its logs. |
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| **redaction** | No secret values, tokens or credential-bearing URLs anywhere, traces and nested causes included. |
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| **channel** | The surface's native machine signal carries the same fields, and a failure is signalled as a failure (never exit 0, HTTP 200 or `isError: false`). |
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**Failure class.** A usage or validation error rejected before any work began needs what, fix,
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code, redaction and channel; its recovery is implied (fix and retry, no side effects), and
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context, reconcile and retry bounds do not apply. Environment, dependency, partial-work and
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unexpected failures need every applicable item. Trace applies to unexpected failures only.
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**Surface.** Keyed to the product types from the Applicability Gate:
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- **CLI Tool:** channel is stderr plus a distinct non-zero exit, and a `--json` form when the tool offers structured output.
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- **API/Service:** channel is HTTP status plus an RFC 9457 problem-details body; context is caller-safe; trace is a correlation id.
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- **Library/SDK:** channel is a typed error class carrying the code and fields; no exit code.
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- **Platform:** the CLI or API rule for whichever interface the error reaches.
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- **Documentation:** what, fix, code and redaction only.
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- **Claude Code Skill:** channel is the skill's printed result line and code. An MCP tool (a sub-case) returns `isError: true` with the fields in text or structured content.
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**Evidence.** Each item on each path is pass, fail, N/A (with a reason) or unknown. In a plan
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review, an applicable item the plan never specifies for a path it introduces is a gap (fail);
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unknown is reserved for existing behavior you could not inspect. In a live audit, error classes
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you never triggered are unknown, not extrapolated.
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**Caps.** Name the path and item behind every cap and show the corrected error line.
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- **4/10 (Critical finding, title `CAP4:<path>:<item>`):** a path leaks a secret, signals failure as success, gives an unsafe fix, or blocks waiting for a terminal (hangs, or fails for lack of a terminal without naming a non-interactive alternative such as `--yes`).
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- **6/10 (High finding, title `CAP6:<path>:<item>`):** a path lacks an applicable fix, recovery, context or trace item.
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Every mode, DX TRIAGE included, reports every CAP4 finding.
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## Examples
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Calibration examples (Elm, Rust, Stripe, a complete CLI error with its RFC 9457 `--json`
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form, and gstack's own partial example) are in the "## Pass 3" section of
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[plan-devex-review/dx-hall-of-fame.md](../plan-devex-review/dx-hall-of-fame.md).
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## Sources
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- Anthropic, "Writing effective tools for AI agents": prompt-engineer error responses into specific, actionable corrections.
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- clig.dev, "Errors": put the actionable line where the reader looks; give debug and traceback information for unexpected errors.
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- CLI Agent Spec (cli-agent-spec.github.io): per-exit-code `retryable` and `side_effects`.
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- RFC 9457, Problem Details for HTTP APIs: `type`, `title`, `detail`, `instance`, and extension members.
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- MCP specification, Tools: tool-execution errors return as `isError: true` results the model can read.
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- Nx, "Agentic Experience Is the New Developer Experience"; agentsurface.dev, "Designing Errors for Agent Recovery".
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## Live audits: gstack-error-capture
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`/devex-review` triggers CLI errors through `bin/gstack-error-capture`, which runs the
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target with no terminal, stdin closed, a temporary cwd and HOME, a scrubbed environment and a
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deadline, and prints one JSON record with redacted streams. `gstack-error-capture --help`
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lists its flags, record fields and error codes.
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