[aw-failures] dispatch_workflow safe-output fails the whole Smoke Copilot run when the ephemeral trigger branch is gone

[github-actions]

Problem

Make dispatch_workflow degrade gracefully instead of failing the entire run — Smoke Copilot's finishing safe-output call (dispatch_workflow → haiku-printer) implicitly targets the run's own trigger ref, and when that ephemeral copilot/* branch is gone by the time the ~15-minute run finishes, the whole job gets marked failure even though the actual task completed successfully.

Affected workflows and runs

• .github/workflows/smoke-copilot.md / .lock.yml — and the same exposure exists in smoke-copilot-arm, smoke-copilot-aoai-apikey, smoke-copilot-aoai-entra (same dispatch-workflow: {workflows: [haiku-printer]} config, no explicit ref:).
• §30689984827 — workflow_dispatch on copilot/ca-cli-version-updates, ran 15.4m (22.5k tokens, 25 requests, error_count: 1), then failed at the finishing safe-output step:

  ##[error]Failed to dispatch workflow "haiku-printer": No ref found for: refs/heads/copilot/ca-cli-version-updates
  ##[error]1 safe output(s) failed
  

Probable root cause

dispatch-workflow in smoke-copilot.md (~line 119-122) has no explicit ref:, so it defaults to dispatching against the triggering branch. For workflow_dispatch runs on short-lived copilot/* branches, that branch can be deleted or renamed (PR merged/closed) before the run finishes and the safe-output fires — turning a successful task run into a hard failure over an unrelated follow-up action.

Evidence: the audit's cohort-matched baseline (§30451982110, same task domain/dispatch mode, conclusion: success) shows the only deltas are posture: write_capable → read_only and run_unsuccessful — i.e. this run did strictly less than a normal successful run and still failed, consistent with the dispatch step being the sole point of failure.

Proposed remediation

1. Pin dispatch-workflow to a stable ref (e.g. the repo default branch) instead of the trigger ref — haiku-printer doesn't need the ephemeral branch's code.
2. If a dynamic ref is genuinely required, make a missing-ref dispatch failure non-fatal (log a warning, keep the run's success conclusion) instead of failing the whole job over an ancillary follow-up dispatch.

Success criteria

A Smoke Copilot run whose trigger branch is deleted mid-run still concludes success (or reports the dispatch failure as a non-fatal warning), and dispatch-workflow no longer defaults to a possibly-deleted trigger ref.

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Parent: #49245
Analyzed run: 30689984827 (baseline comparison: 30451982110)
Related to #49245

Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · agent · 191.1 AIC · ⌖ 25.1 AIC · ⊞ 6.8K · ◷

• expires on Aug 8, 2026, 5:27 AM UTC-08:00

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Generalize the fix — this window shows the "one bad safe-output kills the whole job" flaw isn't limited to the ref-not-found case this issue was opened for.

Confirmed recurrence of the original signature:

Run	Time (UTC)	Signal
§30715678987 (Smoke Copilot)	19:51	##[error]Failed to dispatch workflow "haiku-printer": No ref found for: refs/heads/copilot/update-model-pricing-table — identical to this issue's original evidence.

Two more distinct validation errors, same "hard-fail the whole job" architecture, in the same 12-minute span:

Run	Time (UTC)	Failed safe-output	Error
§30716152552 (Smoke Copilot)	20:03:53	dispatch_workflow	Failed to dispatch workflow "haiku-printer": Required input 'message' not provided — a config/validation bug distinct from the ref-not-found case, not a race condition.
§30716130220 (Smoke Codex)	20:03:18	set_issue_field	Issue field "Status" not found. Available fields: Visibility, Priority, Impact, Effort, DRI, ... Global Status ... — the workflow requests a field name ("Status") that doesn't exist on the target project; the closest real field is "Global Status".

Action: widen this issue's remediation from "pin dispatch-workflow's ref" to "make any single safe-output item's validation failure non-fatal to the job" — all three errors above are pre-flight validation failures (bad ref, missing required input, unknown field name) that could be caught and reported as a warning instead of failing the entire safe_outputs job. Each of the two new signatures is single-occurrence this window (P2 in isolation) so no separate ticket was opened for them — but three distinct validation failures hard-failing the same job type in one 6h window is a pattern, not noise.

Success criteria: a dispatch_workflow or set_issue_field call with a bad ref, missing input, or unknown field name logs a warning and lets the rest of the safe-outputs batch (and the job's overall conclusion) succeed.

Filed by the 6h Failure Investigator scan covering 2026-08-01T19:19–2026-08-02T01:19 UTC.

Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · agent · 142.4 AIC · ⌖ 34 AIC · ⊞ 6.8K · ◷

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Warning

Threat Detection Engine Failure — The analysis engine could not complete. This is a tooling failure, not a security finding.

What happened

The threat detection engine failed to produce results.

Review the workflow run logs for details.

Recurrence confirmed — 2026-08-06 (01:41–07:41 UTC window)

Still happening — 2 more Smoke Copilot safe_outputs job failures this window, no fix shipped yet.

• §31076914297 — created 2026-08-06T06:19:45Z, agent job succeeded, safe_outputs job failed at "Process Safe Outputs"
• §31074756937 — created 2026-08-06T05:39:00Z, same workflow, same failure shape

Consistent with this issue's tracked signature (agent completes, dispatch_workflow safe-output fails the job). No new issue filed — corroborating evidence only.> Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · agent · 148.1 AIC · ⊞ 5.2K · ◷

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New evidence: dispatch_workflow also fails on missing required input, not just deleted refs

A second, distinct trigger for the same dispatch_workflow → haiku-printer failure pattern showed up in this run's 6h failure sweep: §31222505053 (Smoke Copilot - AOAI (Entra), 2026-08-07T22:04Z) failed the same way this issue describes — an otherwise fully successful run (5/6 safe outputs succeeded, including the create_issue/comment) got marked failure because the finishing dispatch_workflow call did not include the message input that haiku-printer.yml requires:

##[error]Failed to dispatch workflow "haiku-printer": Required input 'message' not provided - https://docs.github.com/rest/actions/workflows#create-a-workflow-dispatch-event

actions/setup/js/dispatch_workflow.cjs:208-256 passes message.inputs straight through to the GitHub API dispatch call with no pre-flight validation against the target workflow's declared required inputs, so any omission (model error, prompt drift, etc.) surfaces as a raw 422 and fails the whole job — same net effect as the deleted-ref case this issue was originally filed for.

Suggested scope broadening: the fix here shouldn't just handle the deleted-ref case — it should validate dispatch_workflow inputs against the target workflow's workflow_dispatch.inputs schema before calling the API (or otherwise make dispatch failures degrade gracefully instead of failing the whole job), covering both failure modes with one change.

Cross-referenced from this run's 6h Failure Investigation parent report issue (created same run, 2026-08-08 ~01:00 UTC).> Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · agent · 191.8 AIC · ⌖ 55.2 AIC · ⊞ 5.5K · ◷

[github-actions]

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🍪 Om nom nom by Issue Monster · gpt54 · 8.25 AIC · ⌖ 6.03 AIC · ⊞ 11.1K · ◷