fix(pm-agent): log the CLI's stdout envelope when triage fails; add PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS

`claude --print --output-format json` reports its own failures (API error, usage limit,
error_max_turns) as the result envelope on stdout and leaves stderr empty, so ask_pm()'s
stderr-only message logged "claude exited 1: " with nothing after it, twice on 2026-10-31.
describe_cli_failure() now logs the envelope's diagnostic fields plus stdout/stderr tails,
redacted (sk-ant-, Bearer/token, URL userinfo). PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS (default 1, unchanged)
makes the max-turns remedy a ConfigMap change if the envelope turns out to say error_max_turns.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>

decisions/2026-10-31-pm-agent-triage-exit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-31
+branch: fix/pm-agent-triage-exit
+title: pm-agent triage fails with "claude exited 1:" and no message; log the CLI's stdout envelope so the cause is visible
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+- `infra/agent/pm-dispatch.py`, `ask_pm()`: on a non-zero exit the error now comes from a new
+  `describe_cli_failure()`, not from `proc.stderr` alone. With `--output-format json` the CLI
+  reports its own failures as the result envelope on **stdout** and writes nothing to stderr,
+  which is why both failures today logged `claude exited 1: ` with an empty message. The new
+  line carries the envelope's `subtype`, `is_error`, `api_error_status`, `num_turns`,
+  `duration_ms`, `total_cost_usd`, `stop_reason`, its `result`/`error` text, and the tails of
+  stdout and stderr. It names silence explicitly when both streams are empty.
+- `redact()`: everything in that message, and in `extract_decision()`'s "no decision object"
+  error, passes through it. It covers `sk-ant-…`, `Bearer`/`token` values, and `user:pass@` in
+  both `http://` and `https://` URLs.
+- `PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS`: a new knob. It defaults to 1, today's value, so behaviour is
+  unchanged, and it is bounded to 1–5. If the newly visible envelope says `error_max_turns`,
+  the remedy is a ConfigMap change rather than another image build. Documented in
+  `platform/pm-agent/README.md`.
+- Selftest: four new assertions. They cover an empty stderr with the cause on stdout, a
+  stderr-only failure, total silence, and redaction.
+
+## What I verified
+
+- **Timeline (Loki, `{namespace="pm-agent"}`, and `kubectl logs`):**
+  - **16:37:38 to 16:38:00**: pod `pm-agent-898fd8f5f-dp5hs`, image **c4eba5b3**,
+    config-generation 2, dry run. It triaged #97 in **22 s**, logged `PM says comment`, and
+    posted the 16:38:00Z comment. The thread then held only the issue body.
+  - **16:43:09 to 16:44:00**: pod `pm-agent-f7c9b7fcf-j8mzn`, image **df36d9b7**,
+    config-generation 3, **still dry run**. It logged `claude exited 1: ` with an empty
+    message after **51 s**.
+  - **16:55:42 to 16:56:36**: pod `pm-agent-7796db8bcb-p5dsm`, df36d9b7, config-generation
+    4, live. The same empty failure, after **54 s**.
+  - The only successful triage ever was the 16:38 one. Every earlier `898fd8f5f`/`5db55d558c`
+    log line is a startup crash (Gitea `GET /user` 401), not a triage.
+- **Going live is NOT the cause.** The first failure happened in dry run. `ask_pm()` has no
+  dry-run branch: the prompt, flags, tools (`--tools ""`) and cwd are identical in both
+  modes. `PM_DRY_RUN` gates only `create_job()`, which runs after the model has answered.
+- **Ruled out, with evidence:**
+  - **Timeout**: 51 to 54 s against a 900 s limit, and a timeout raises `TimeoutExpired`,
+    not rc 1.
+  - **Budget cap**: the PM call passes no `--max-budget-usd`.
+  - **Prompt size**: the thread is the issue body (293 chars) plus three comments
+    (1871 + 404 + 77 chars), and the persona is 8 KB.
+  - **Writable HOME**: HOME=`/workspace` (emptyDir), and `CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=/workspace/.claude`
+    was written at 16:56.
+  - **Egress**: a TLS 1.3 handshake to `api.anthropic.com:443` from the dispatcher pod
+    succeeds in 0.06 s.
+  - **Model name and CLI version**: the same `claude-opus-5` and CLI 2.1.285 succeeded at
+    16:38. Between c4eba5b and df36d9b, `infra/agent/` differs only by a template selftest
+    assertion and the toolbox base digest.
+- **A hint, not proof:** `/workspace/.claude/.claude.json` in the live pod has
+  `cachedExtraUsageDisabledReason: 'out_of_credits'`. No token was read or printed.
+- Offline selftest: `PM_SELFTEST=1` against the worktree's template and persona prints
+  `selftest OK`, including the 4 new assertions.
+- Toolbox gate: see the PR description for the rc and the stages that were skipped.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **The root cause. UNVERIFIED.** The CLI's own message was discarded, `--no-session-persistence`
+  leaves no transcript, and I did not run `claude` in the pod. The candidates still open:
+  - **Usage or rate limit on the subscription seat.** The seat is shared with the operator's
+    interactive use. The `out_of_credits` extra-usage flag fits this. So does a ~50 s run,
+    which matches the CLI exhausting its 429/529 retries.
+  - **`error_max_turns`.** With `--max-turns 1` and `--json-schema`, an answer that fails the
+    schema cannot be retried. The failing thread now invites `implement` (a branch plus a
+    long brief), where the 16:38 one produced a short `comment`. ~50 s is about two
+    generations of the 22 s success.
+- **The 17:11 retry will NOT reveal the cause.** It runs the old image, which still discards
+  stdout. The cause becomes visible only after this PR merges, CI re-publishes agent-runner,
+  and a follow-up PR bumps the dispatcher digest (`deployment.yaml` and the `PM_WORKER_IMAGE`
+  in `configmap.yaml`, plus a `config-generation` bump).
+- That the CLI's error envelope carries exactly these key names. The parser takes whichever
+  keys are present and falls back to raw tails.

infra/agent/pm-dispatch.py

@@ -214,6 +214,12 @@ class Config:
         # ConfigMap without rebuilding the image.
         self.push_on_red = env("PM_PUSH_ON_RED_GATE", "false")
         self.pm_timeout = env_int("PM_DECISION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS", 900)
+        # The PM holds no tools, so the only thing a second turn can be spent on is the CLI's
+        # structured-output step re-asking the model after an answer that failed the schema.
+        # 1 is the long-standing value; it is a knob so that, if the failure envelope now
+        # logged by describe_cli_failure() says `error_max_turns`, the remedy is a ConfigMap
+        # change rather than another image build.
+        self.pm_max_turns = env_int("PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS", 1)
         # Opt-in gate. Empty (the default) means every open issue is in scope, which is the
         # behaviour the service was asked for. Setting it to a label name — `agent` is the
         # conventional one — narrows the agent to issues a human has explicitly handed it,
@@ -231,6 +237,8 @@ class Config:
 
         if self.max_active_workers < 1:
             die("PM_MAX_ACTIVE_WORKERS must be >= 1")
+        if not 1 <= self.pm_max_turns <= 5:
+            die("PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS must be between 1 and 5")
         if "@sha256:" not in self.worker_image:
             # The admission policy requires a digest too, so a tag here would produce a Job
             # that is created and then DENIED — a failure visible only in the dispatcher's
@@ -437,7 +445,7 @@ def ask_pm(cfg: Config, thread: str) -> dict:
         "--system-prompt-file", cfg.persona_file,
         "--tools", "",
         "--permission-prompts", "none",
-        "--max-turns", "1",
+        "--max-turns", str(cfg.pm_max_turns),
         "--output-format", "json",
         "--json-schema", json.dumps(DECISION_SCHEMA),
         "--no-session-persistence",
@@ -445,10 +453,76 @@ def ask_pm(cfg: Config, thread: str) -> dict:
     proc = subprocess.run(cmd, input=thread, capture_output=True, text=True,
                           timeout=cfg.pm_timeout)
     if proc.returncode != 0:
-        raise RuntimeError(f"claude exited {proc.returncode}: {proc.stderr.strip()[:800]}")
+        raise RuntimeError(describe_cli_failure(proc.returncode, proc.stdout, proc.stderr))
     return extract_decision(proc.stdout)
 
 
+# Anything that could be a credential in the CLI's output. The CLI does not normally echo its
+# token, but an API error body or a proxy's HTML page is not something to bet a leak on. Both
+# schemes are matched (the http one is the lesson of a scheme-specific redaction that leaked
+# ~/.git-credentials), and `token ...` is Gitea's own header scheme.
+_SECRET_PATTERNS = [
+    (re.compile(r"sk-ant-[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+"), "sk-ant-[REDACTED]"),
+    (re.compile(r"(?i)\b(bearer|token)(\s+|=|:\s*)[A-Za-z0-9._~+/=\-]{8,}"), r"\1\2[REDACTED]"),
+    (re.compile(r"(?i)(https?://)[^/\s:@]+:[^/\s@]+@"), r"\1[REDACTED]@"),
+]
+
+
+def redact(text: str) -> str:
+    for pat, repl in _SECRET_PATTERNS:
+        text = pat.sub(repl, text)
+    return text
+
+
+def describe_cli_failure(rc: int, stdout: str, stderr: str, limit: int = 800) -> str:
+    """Say WHY `claude --print` failed, in the dispatcher log, redacted.
+
+    WHY THIS EXISTS: with `--output-format json` the CLI reports its own failures — an API
+    error, a usage limit, `error_max_turns`, a schema the model could not satisfy — as the
+    JSON result envelope on STDOUT (`is_error`, `subtype`, `result`), and writes nothing to
+    stderr. Logging only stderr therefore produced `claude exited 1: ` with an empty message
+    on 2026-10-31, twice, with the cause sitting unread in stdout. So: the envelope's
+    diagnostic fields first, then the raw tails of both streams.
+    """
+    parts = [f"claude exited {rc}"]
+    out = (stdout or "").strip()
+    env = None
+    if out:
+        try:
+            env = json.loads(out)
+        except ValueError:
+            # A stream of JSON lines, or a log line ahead of the envelope: the last line that
+            # parses as an object is the result.
+            for line in reversed(out.splitlines()):
+                try:
+                    cand = json.loads(line)
+                except ValueError:
+                    continue
+                if isinstance(cand, dict):
+                    env = cand
+                    break
+    if isinstance(env, dict):
+        fields = []
+        for key in ("subtype", "is_error", "api_error_status", "num_turns", "duration_ms",
+                    "duration_api_ms", "total_cost_usd", "stop_reason"):
+            if key in env:
+                fields.append(f"{key}={env[key]!r}")
+        if fields:
+            parts.append("envelope: " + " ".join(fields))
+        for key in ("result", "error", "errors", "message"):
+            if env.get(key):
+                val = env[key] if isinstance(env[key], str) else json.dumps(env[key])
+                parts.append(f"{key}: {val[:limit]}")
+    if out and not isinstance(env, dict):
+        parts.append(f"stdout tail: {out[-limit:]}")
+    err_text = (stderr or "").strip()
+    if err_text:
+        parts.append(f"stderr tail: {err_text[-limit:]}")
+    if len(parts) == 1:
+        parts.append("(no output on stdout or stderr)")
+    return redact(" | ".join(parts))
+
+
 def extract_decision(stdout: str) -> dict:
     """Pull the decision object out of whatever `claude --print` wrapped it in.
 
@@ -501,7 +575,7 @@ def extract_decision(stdout: str) -> dict:
         obj = as_obj(c)
         if obj and isinstance(obj.get("action"), str):
             return obj
-    raise RuntimeError(f"no decision object in claude output: {stdout[:400]!r}")
+    raise RuntimeError(redact(f"no decision object in claude output: {stdout[-800:]!r}"))
 
 
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- thread
@@ -988,8 +1062,25 @@ def selftest() -> int:
         except RuntimeError:
             check(True, f"bad output refused: {label}")
 
+    # -- a failed CLI run must say why, and must not leak ---------------------
+    # The 2026-10-31 failure: rc 1, empty stderr, the cause in the stdout envelope.
+    env_err = json.dumps({"type": "result", "subtype": "error_max_turns", "is_error": True,
+                          "num_turns": 2, "result": "API Error: 429 rate_limit_error"})
+    msg = describe_cli_failure(1, env_err, "")
+    check("error_max_turns" in msg and "429" in msg,
+          "CLI failure: stdout envelope surfaced when stderr is empty")
+    msg = describe_cli_failure(1, "", "boom on stderr")
+    check("boom on stderr" in msg, "CLI failure: stderr tail surfaced")
+    msg = describe_cli_failure(1, "", "")
+    check("no output" in msg, "CLI failure: silence is named, not an empty message")
+    msg = describe_cli_failure(1, "plain text sk-ant-oat01-abcdefABCDEF_123 here",
+                               "Authorization: Bearer abcdefghijklmnop "
+                               "http://u:[email protected]/x")
+    check("sk-ant-oat01" not in msg and "abcdefghijklmnop" not in msg and ":pw@" not in msg,
+          "CLI failure: token, bearer and URL credential redacted")
+
     # -- the committed Job template -----------------------------------------
-    tmpl = os.environ.get("PM_WORKER_JOB_TEMPLATE", "/etc/pm-agent/worker-job-template.yaml")
+    tmpl =os.environ.get("PM_WORKER_JOB_TEMPLATE", "/etc/pm-agent/worker-job-template.yaml")
     try:
         selftest_template(tmpl)
         check(True, f"worker Job template satisfies its contract ({tmpl})")

platform/pm-agent/README.md

@@ -250,6 +250,12 @@ five that matter:
 | `PM_MAX_ACTIVE_WORKERS` | `2` | concurrent workers. RAM is the binding constraint (2Gi limit each) and the subscription seat's rate limits are shared with every other use of that seat |
 | `PM_MAX_NEW_WORKERS_PER_CYCLE` | `1` | drains a backlog one issue at a time instead of in one stampede the first minute the credentials work |
 | `PM_PUSH_ON_RED_GATE` | `false` | a change the gate refused is not pushed; the issue gets the gate log instead |
+| `PM_DECISION_MAX_TURNS` | `1` (unset) | turns the triage call may take (1–5). The PM holds no tools, so a second turn is only ever the CLI re-asking after an answer that failed the decision schema. Raise it if a triage error logs `subtype='error_max_turns'` |
+
+**When a triage fails**, the `[error] issue #N: claude exited …` line carries the CLI's result
+envelope (`subtype`, `is_error`, `api_error_status`, `num_turns`, `result`) and the tails of
+stdout and stderr, redacted. Before 2026-10-31 it logged stderr only, which is empty under
+`--output-format json` — see `decisions/2026-10-31-pm-agent-triage-exit.md`.
 
 Changing a knob requires bumping the `config-generation` annotation in `deployment.yaml` in
 the same commit — the process reads its configuration once, at startup, so without the bump