Agent Failure Catalog

Use this catalog for repeatable agent failures. Keep each entry short, actionable, and tied to existing docs or tools. Use the exact entry format shown below when adding new failures.

## Symptom: <short description>

- Likely cause:
- How to reproduce:
- How to diagnose:
- Existing docs or tools:
- Missing harness piece:
- Proposed prevention:

Symptom: Stale generated DB code after SQL changes

• Likely cause: A query or migration changed without running make gen.
• How to reproduce: Modify coderd/database/queries/*.sql and run tests or builds without regenerating coderd/database/queries.sql.go and related generated files.
• How to diagnose: Check git diff for SQL changes without generated Go changes. Run make gen and inspect the resulting diff.
• Existing docs or tools: AGENTS.md, Database Development Patterns, and the make gen target.
• Missing harness piece: No preflight doc checklist currently points agents at generated DB drift before they run unrelated checks.
• Proposed prevention: Always run make gen after database query or migration edits, then include the generated diff in the same commit.

Symptom: Missing audit table updates

• Likely cause: A database schema change affects audited data but enterprise/audit/table.go was not updated.
• How to reproduce: Add or change a table that audit logging expects, run make gen, and observe audit-related generation or test failures.
• How to diagnose: Inspect the make gen failure, then compare the changed database tables with enterprise/audit/table.go.
• Existing docs or tools: AGENTS.md, Database Development Patterns, and make gen.
• Missing harness piece: Agents need a failure catalog entry that connects generation failures to audit table maintenance.
• Proposed prevention: After database changes, run make gen, update enterprise/audit/table.go when generation reports audit drift, and rerun make gen.

Symptom: Playwright failure without artifacts

• Likely cause: The failing run did not preserve screenshots, traces, videos, browser console output, or the Playwright report path.
• How to reproduce: Run a Playwright test from site with pnpm playwright:test, let it fail, and discard the generated output before reporting the failure.
• How to diagnose: Playwright writes per-test failure artifacts (screenshots, videos, and traces) to site/test-results/, the HTML report to site/playwright-report/, and the coderd debug log to site/e2e/test-results/debug.log. In CI, the test-e2e job uploads artifacts named playwright-artifacts-, coderd-debug-logs-, and debug-pprof-dumps-, each followed by the matrix job name and commit SHA.
• Existing docs or tools: Frontend Development Guidelines, site/e2e/README.md, and pnpm playwright:test.
• Missing harness piece: No central checklist tells agents which browser artifacts must be attached to a failure report.
• Proposed prevention: Capture the Playwright report path, screenshot, trace, video, browser console output, and command output before retrying or cleaning the workspace.

Symptom: Go test failure without preserved diagnostics

• Likely cause: The failing CI job summary or compact failures artifact was discarded before reporting or retrying the failure.
• How to reproduce: Let a Go test job fail in CI, then report the failure using only the final job status instead of the job summary and artifacts.
• How to diagnose: Open the failed Go test job summary for the inline failure table and per-test details. Download go-test-failures-*.ndjson for deeper inspection of the compact failures-only records.
• Existing docs or tools: .github/workflows/ci.yaml Go test jobs and scripts/gotestsummary.
• Missing harness piece: Agents need a central reminder to preserve the small Go test diagnostics artifact instead of the old raw test log.
• Proposed prevention: Attach or summarize the inline job summary and preserve go-test-failures-*.ndjson when reporting CI Go test failures.

Symptom: Port collision across worktrees

• Likely cause: Multiple worktrees use the same default develop ports.
• How to reproduce: Start ./scripts/develop.sh in one worktree, then start it in another worktree without overriding ports.
• How to diagnose: Look for port <n> is already in use or conflict errors in the develop output. Check listeners with lsof -iTCP:<port> -sTCP:LISTEN.
• Existing docs or tools: Development Isolation Guide for Agents and scripts/develop/main.go.
• Missing harness piece: There is no automatic per-worktree port allocator.
• Proposed prevention: Assign each worktree a unique CODER_DEV_PORT, CODER_DEV_WEB_PORT, CODER_DEV_PROXY_PORT, and CODER_DEV_PROMETHEUS_PORT before starting the app.

Symptom: Test using time.Sleep

• Likely cause: A test waits for time to pass instead of synchronizing on a deterministic condition or using the quartz clock.
• How to reproduce: Add a test that depends on time.Sleep, then run it under load or with the race detector until it flakes.
• How to diagnose: Search the test diff for time.Sleep. Inspect whether the code under test can use quartz or another explicit synchronization point.
• Existing docs or tools: AGENTS.md, Testing Patterns and Best Practices, and the quartz README linked from TESTING.md.
• Missing harness piece: Agents need a failure entry that labels sleep-based waiting as a flake risk before review.
• Proposed prevention: Replace time.Sleep with a fake clock, trapped ticker, channel, poll with timeout, or another deterministic signal.

Symptom: DB work inside InTx uses the outer store

• Likely cause: Code inside a transaction closure calls api.Database, p.db, or a helper that uses the outer store instead of the tx handle.
• How to reproduce: Add DB work inside db.InTx(...) that calls back into the outer store, then exercise it under concurrent load.
• How to diagnose: Inspect the closure and helper call graph for database calls that do not use the transaction handle. Look for pool waits, idle in transaction symptoms, or deadlocks under load.
• Existing docs or tools: AGENTS.md, Database Development Patterns, and code review of InTx closures.
• Missing harness piece: No automated check currently proves every helper used inside InTx stays on the transaction handle.
• Proposed prevention: Fetch read-only inputs before opening the transaction, pass tx into helpers that need DB access, and avoid receiver helpers that hide outer-store usage.

Symptom: New API endpoint missing swagger annotations

• Likely cause: A handler or route was added without matching swagger comments.
• How to reproduce: Add a stable HTTP endpoint and skip @Summary, @Router, or related annotations.
• How to diagnose: Compare the new handler with nearby handlers and inspect generated API docs for the route.
• Existing docs or tools: AGENTS.md, Documentation Style Guide, and API generation checks.
• Missing harness piece: Agents need a doc reminder that endpoint work includes docs unless the route is intentionally experimental.
• Proposed prevention: Add swagger annotations in the same change as stable endpoints. For experimental or unstable API paths, add // @x-apidocgen {"skip": true} after @Router.