Tianyi Cui
e6fad266a6
Define the in-file RFC contract in docs/rfc/README.md § The file format: the header block (`# RFC: <title>` plus a dateless Status enum cross-checked against the lifecycle folder), the per-lifecycle body skeleton (a Problem opener everywhere; Proposal/Alternatives considered/ Acceptance criteria/Risks in proposed/; present-tense Decision/ Consequences with proposal-era headings banned in implemented/; the frozen proposal shape in rejected/), and a mandatory Alternatives considered section with a date-fenced grandfather comment for pre-format RFCs whose alternatives are not reconstructible from the record. Enforce it with a new doc-sync gate, scripts/verify-rfc-format.ts, and normalize all 112 RFCs to it: ~15 Status-line spellings collapse to the enum, 29 Context openers become Problem, the 39 legacy-format XXX debt markers are resolved and banned from reappearing, proposal-era sections in implemented RFCs are rewritten to shipped reality (including the web/fs/subagent seam RFCs' migration plans and test checklists, closing the doc-tiers deferred-work item on the web seam), every RFC gains an Alternatives considered section or the grandfather comment, and the bilingual pair is re-mirrored and re-recorded. Move the generated index tables out of README.md into a fully generated docs/rfc/INDEX.md — gen-rfc-index now writes the whole file, and verify-rfc-classification checks its freshness and rejects index-shaped rows in the curated README — which makes room for the format contract to live in the README front door instead of a separate FORMAT.md. The decision record, and the first RFC written in the new format, is docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-05-uniform-rfc-format.md.
27 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
27 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
# RFC: Structured error taxonomy
|
|
|
|
Status: implemented
|
|
|
|
## Problem
|
|
|
|
Failures crossed seams as bare strings. A tool error flattened to a text block — name, code, and stack lost — so a future sandbox/retry plugin couldn't tell ENOENT from EACCES, and the model got less actionable feedback than it could. A non-Error throw degraded further: the loop wrapped it in `new Error(String(x))`, dropping any code. And `LlmError` was the only typed error in the system, with no shared base, so there was nothing for a consumer to `instanceof` against generically.
|
|
|
|
This is the last of the runtime-validation / error-taxonomy pieces and the one the user was most skeptical of, so it was deliberately built **last and in isolation**: the earlier PRs (arg validation, dev invariants) threw plain `Error`s with a `code` field, decoupled from any shared base, so this change is a pure upgrade and is independently revertible without unpicking them.
|
|
|
|
## Decision
|
|
|
|
A single `HarnessError extends Error` base in `dsh-llm` (the leaf package every other imports — no new dependency edge): a stable `code` distinct from `message`, `cause` chaining via `ErrorOptions`, and `name` defaulting to the subclass. `isHarnessError` narrows at seams.
|
|
|
|
- `LlmError`, `ToolArgsError` (dsh-tools), and `InvariantError` (dsh-invariants) now extend it, keeping their existing codes.
|
|
- `ToolExecutionResult` gains optional `error: { name, code }`, populated in the registry's catch when the thrown value is a `HarnessError`. The agent loop forwards it onto the `tool/result` session event (which gained the same optional field), so the structured failure survives into the log for retry/sandbox plugins and replay. The model-facing text block is unchanged.
|
|
- The loop's `toError` wraps a non-Error throw in a `HarnessError` (`code: 'UNKNOWN'`, original chained as `cause`) instead of a bare `Error`, so even a bad throw carries a routable code into the session `error` event (which already surfaced `code`).
|
|
|
|
## Consequences
|
|
|
|
- Errors are machine-routable end-to-end: a plugin can branch on `error.code` rather than substring-matching a message.
|
|
- One base class is imported widely, but it lives in the package everyone already depends on, so the cost is a single import, not a new edge.
|
|
- `deriveMessages` does not surface `error` into model history — the model still sees the text block; the structured field is for code and replay.
|
|
- Reverting this PR returns the earlier errors to plain `Error`+`code` form; nothing else in the stack depends on the shared base.
|
|
|
|
<!-- rfc-format: alternatives-not-recorded (pre-format RFC) -->
|