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[aw-failures] [aw-fix] Issue Triage Agent (main) false failure — Copilot CLI hangs after final safe output, hits 5-min step time [Content truncated due to length] #44407

Description

@github-actions

Kill the Copilot CLI once the agent has emitted its final safe output — it currently hangs until the step timeout, turning healthy no-op runs into red failures.

On main, the Issue Triage Agent completed its logic correctly — it emitted a valid noop ("No unlabeled open issues found ... no triage action needed") — but the Execute GitHub Copilot CLI process then hung and was killed by the 5-minute step timeout, marking a fully successful run as failed.

Affected workflow / runs

  • Issue Triage Agent (.github/workflows/issue-triage.lock.yml / Copilot engine, branch main)
  • Failed run: §28954445421

Evidence

15:26:21  [safeoutputs] recv tools/call name=noop  arguments.reason="No unlabeled open issues found ... No triage action was needed."
15:31:22  [safeoutputs] Final processed config ...        (backend still alive, ~5 min later)
15:31:34  ##[error]The action 'Execute GitHub Copilot CLI' has timed out after 5 minutes.

The agent's work finished at 15:26:21; the process did not exit and was force-timed-out ~5 minutes later. No sandbox-firewall permission error is present in this run (distinguishing it from #44242).

Probable root cause

The Copilot CLI harness does not terminate after the agent produces its terminal safe output. The process idles (open MCP/backend connections) until the workflow-level GH_AW_TIMEOUT_MINUTES fires, which the runner records as a failure.

Proposed remediation

  • After the agent emits a terminal result/safe output, have the harness send an explicit shutdown to the Copilot CLI (and close MCP client connections) so the process exits with code 0.
  • Add a post-result watchdog: if no further activity within N seconds of the final result, terminate the CLI cleanly rather than waiting for the hard step timeout.
  • Ensure a clean post-result exit is scored as success, not timeout-failure.

Success criteria

  • A run whose agent emits noop/final output exits promptly (well under the step timeout) and is marked success.
  • No Execute GitHub Copilot CLI ... timed out failures on runs that already produced a terminal safe output.

Note: feature-branch smoke-test timeouts this window (Smoke Copilot AOAI 28966796489, Smoke Claude 28966636432) are a different mechanism — post-run "Rootless artifact permission repair" retries on root-owned dirs, tracked under #44242.

Analyzed run: 28954445421.

Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · 211.3 AIC · ⌖ 34.6 AIC · ⊞ 5.2K ·

  • expires on Jul 15, 2026, 11:25 AM UTC-08:00

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