Add repeat_policy.on_limit: fail for exhausted until loops - #3651

Actionable comments posted: 2

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @internal/intg/repeat_test.go:
- Around line 597-629: Extend TestRepeatPolicy_UntilOnLimitFailConditionMet with
a case where the condition becomes true on the final allowed attempt, not before
the limit. Assert that the run succeeds and that the recorded attempt count
includes that final attempt, while preserving the existing early-success case.

Review comments at @internal/runtime/runner.go:
- Around line 2105-2107: Update failRepeatLimit so repeat-limit failures honor
the node’s existing markSuccess behavior: when ShouldMarkSuccess returns true,
set the node status to NodeSucceeded and return before recording the error with
setLastError. Preserve the current failure and lastError handling when marking
success does not apply.

---

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Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between a2c494d and dac15c5.

Files selected for processing: 8

• conformance/spec075_repeat_policy/repeat_policy_test.go
• conformance/spec075_repeat_policy/testdata/until_met_on_limit_fail_succeeds.yaml
• conformance/spec075_repeat_policy/testdata/until_not_met_on_limit_fail.yaml
• internal/intg/repeat_test.go
• internal/ir/step.go
• internal/runtime/runner.go
• internal/spec/builder_test.go
• internal/spec/step.go

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Assessment

The feature is well-targeted and the core wiring is sound: the limit check already short-circuits before the condition is evaluated, so re-evaluating once at the limit is the right place to distinguish "exhausted" from "satisfied", and routing the failure through finalizeFailedNode keeps continue_on.mark_success working. The opt-in default (succeed) means zero behavior change for existing workflows.

Not safe to merge as-is. Two issues block it: failRepeatLimit silently discards condition evaluation errors and interrupted checks, both of which contradict normative rules already written in specs/075-repeat-policy.md; and the spec/schema surfaces for the new field were not updated even though a conformance test was added under conformance/spec075_repeat_policy/.

Prior review feedback

No earlier review from @yohamta0 on this PR. The two CodeRabbit findings are both addressed at HEAD (ff54bed): commit ff6003c routes repeat-limit failures through finalizeFailedNode (covered by TestRepeatPolicy_UntilOnLimitFailContinueOnMarkSuccess), and TestRepeatPolicy_UntilOnLimitFailConditionMetOnFinalAttempt covers a condition met on the last allowed attempt. Neither is re-raised here.

Must fix before merging

1. Evaluation errors are swallowed at the limit (internal/runtime/runner.go:2213). Spec 075 states: "An evaluation error is not a loop answer: the step stops repeating and fails unless a matching continue_on policy has mark_success: true", with the num: example explicitly calling out that the step fails. The !errors.Is(err, ErrConditionNotMet) guard returns early for any non-not-met error, so the identical broken condition fails on attempt 1 but succeeds on the limit attempt. This also defeats the feature's own safety premise: condition: "${PASS_RATE}" / expected: "num:>=1" against non-numeric output on the final attempt yields a succeeded step, and the issue's open_pr still ships failing work.

2. An interrupted final check reports failed instead of aborted (internal/runtime/runner.go:2213). shouldRepeatNode guards this with if ctxErr := ctx.Err(); ctxErr != nil { err = errConditionInterrupted } → NodeAborted; failRepeatLimit has no equivalent. A stop arriving while the limit-attempt condition command runs kills it, a value-match comparison then returns ErrConditionNotMet, and the node is marked NodeFailed. The tail of execNodeWithRetry only promotes Running/Succeeded/PartiallySucceeded to Aborted, so Failed sticks — violating "If workflow abort or timeout interrupts the check, the step follows the abort or timeout outcome instead of treating the interrupted check as a loop answer."

3. specs/075-repeat-policy.md is not updated. Per AGENTS.md, specs/ holds the normative behavior and conformance/ tests those specs — this PR adds conformance/spec075_repeat_policy/ cases for behavior the spec does not describe, and the spec's current wording ("Once the count reaches limit, the step does not repeat again regardless of the repeat decision") no longer tells the whole story. Add on_limit to Scope, the Repeat Decision rules, and the met/not-met/eval-error outcome list.

4. on_limit is missing from the JSON schema, in both schemas/dag.schema.json and internal/cmn/schema/dag.schema.json (kept in sync by TestDAGSchemaRepoCopyMatchesEmbeddedSchema), and in both repeat_policy nodes — definitions/step/properties/repeat_policy and properties/defaults/properties/repeat_policy (defaults share the same repeatPolicy struct, so on_limit is accepted there too). repeat_policy has no additionalProperties: false, so nothing breaks today, but the field is invisible to editor validation and completion, and this is the only repeat_policy key not in the schema.

Should fix

• api/v1/api.yaml RepeatPolicy has no onLimit (line 18450). Every other repeat field is exposed; a flag that changes step failure semantics is currently invisible to the API and UI step details. Needs make api + cd ui && pnpm gen:api.
• Validation sits after an early return (internal/spec/step.go): the new switch rp.OnLimit is placed at the end of buildStepRepeatPolicy, after if mode == "" { return ir.RepeatPolicy{}, nil }. So repeat_policy: {limit: 2, on_limit: abort} with no resolvable mode is silently accepted and ignored instead of rejected. Moving the switch above the mode gate (or validating rp.OnLimit first) closes it. Relatedly, on_limit: fail with no limit passes validation but can never fire — worth rejecting.
• OnLimit is an untyped string while its sibling RepeatMode is a named type with a const block (internal/ir/step.go). Prefer type RepeatOnLimit string with RepeatOnLimitFail/RepeatOnLimitSucceed next to the RepeatMode consts, which also removes the bare "succeed" literal in internal/spec/step.go. The lone const currently sits between the struct and its UnmarshalJSON.
• Consider guarding on mode in failRepeatLimit: spec-level validation rejects fail + while, but IR reaching the runner from persisted state or the embedded engine API is not re-validated, and an unmet while condition at the limit is a normal stop that would then be reported as a failure. A rp.RepeatMode != ir.RepeatModeUntil early return matches the function's own godoc.
• The exit_code form of until has the same hazard the PR fixes (limit reached without ever seeing an accepted exit code, step reports success) but is rejected by validation. Fine to defer, but worth a note in the spec about why only the conditioned form is covered.

Performance and resource safety

None found by inspection; assessment is from reading the changed code and its call sites, not from load tests or profiling.

• CPU / process spawn: one additional condition evaluation (one shell subprocess for a value-match or command-check condition) per exhausted until loop, only for steps that opt in. The limit-check fast path is byte-for-byte unchanged for every step without on_limit: fail. No new loop, poll, or retry.
• Memory / leaks: no new goroutines, timers, channels, buffers, caches, or file descriptors. failRepeatLimit reuses the existing reloadNodeOutputs context derivation and returns synchronously.
• Disk / file count: OnLimit adds one omitempty string to the persisted step/node JSON, written only when set to fail; no new files, logs, or artifacts, so no retention or rotation concern.
• Long-running processes: nothing on a scheduler, coordinator, or worker hot path changes. A continuous step (spec 083) without limit never reaches the new branch.
• One note: when the run is already being torn down, failRepeatLimit still spawns the condition subprocess — adding the ctx.Err() check from must-fix #2 avoids that work as a side benefit.

Tests

Good coverage of the happy paths, including the final-attempt edge case. Gaps worth closing alongside the fixes: an evaluation-error-at-the-limit case (must-fix #1), and the builder_test.go explicit-succeed case currently asserts nothing (see inline). The conformance fixtures are properly isolated — harness.NewRunner gives each parallel subtest its own t.TempDir(), so the shared ticks.txt name is safe.

Thanks for the clear problem statement and for tying the fixtures back to spec 075 — the diagnosis of why an exhausted loop is indistinguishable from a satisfied one is exactly right, and the continue_on.mark_success routing from the follow-up commit is the correct shape.

_{Reviewed with claude-opus-5 (reasoning effort: xhigh).}

Assessment

The shape of the feature is right and the follow-up commit (1dada68) addressed every must-fix from the previous round. Re-verified against HEAD:

One thing blocks merge, and it is a one-line change: failRepeatLimit guards only on ctx.Err(), while its sibling shouldRepeatNode guards on r.isCanceled() || node.State().Status == ir.NodeAborted as well. A non-force stop never cancels the context — Stop() sets cancelRequested/canceled and, for a repeat step, explicitly skips node.Stop() ("Waiting for repeat node to finish"). So a dagu stop that lands while the limit-attempt condition command is running leaves ctx.Err() == nil, the comparison returns ErrConditionNotMet, and the node is marked NodeFailed. The post-loop abort promotion only rewrites Running/Succeeded/PartiallySucceeded, so Failed sticks and setLastError makes the run Failed rather than Aborted. That contradicts the spec sentence this PR itself adds ("This includes the final evaluation at limit: the interruption owns the status instead of on_limit: fail") and is exactly the race the existing post-eval guard in shouldRepeatNode exists to cover. The window is as wide as the condition command's runtime, so it is not theoretical for condition: ./check-ready.sh.

Must fix before merging

1. internal/runtime/runner.go:2217 — add the cancel/abort guard alongside ctx.Err(), matching shouldRepeatNode:2097 and :2124. See inline.

Should fix

• internal/runtime/runner.go:2232 — the eval-error branch discards execErr, so the failed attempt's command error is replaced by the condition error. The PR argues the opposite case well enough to add a test for it (...KeepsAttemptError); the same reasoning applies here.
• internal/runtime/runner_repeat_limit_internal_test.go — the only coverage for the interrupt rule uses a pre-cancelled context, i.e. the one path that already works. The graceful-stop path above is uncovered, and per AGENTS.md this belongs in the existing runner_internal_test.go rather than a new file.
• specs/075-repeat-policy.md — the Examples section still shows only the plain polling case. A three-line on_limit: fail example with its expected outcome would make the normative rules concrete, since this spec is what the conformance suite is written against.

Not blocking

• api/v1/api.yaml RepeatPolicy still has no onLimit. Withdrawing my earlier framing of this as a gap worth fixing here: transformer.go:124 already omits backoff and maxIntervalSec even though both are declared in api.yaml, so the repeat-policy API surface is partial by precedent. Fine to defer to a follow-up that exposes all three together.
• on_limit: succeed is normalized to the empty string, so an explicit succeed is indistinguishable from an unset field in persisted state. Deliberate and harmless, but worth a line in the field godoc if anyone later reads OnLimit expecting a tri-state.
• A dynamic limit (limit: "${N}") that resolves to 0 passes the new on_limit: fail validation and then silently never fires, since the runtime gate is rp.Limit > 0. Not catchable at build time; mentioning it only so it is a known edge rather than a surprise.

Performance and resource safety

None found by inspection. This assessment comes from reading the changed code and its call sites — no load tests, benchmarks, or profiling were run, and CI was not re-run locally.

• CPU / process spawn: one additional EvalCondition per exhausted until loop — a single subprocess for a command-check or value-match condition — and only for steps that opt in. Total evaluations go from limit - 1 to limit, not 2 x limit: the hard-limit branch short-circuits before the normal evaluation, so the limit attempt is still evaluated exactly once. The fast path is byte-for-byte unchanged for every step without on_limit: fail. No new loop, poll, or retry; failRepeatLimit runs once and then shouldRepeatNode returns false, so the ExecRepeat loop exits.
• Memory / leaks: no new goroutines, timers, channels, buffers, caches, subscriptions, or file descriptors. failRepeatLimit reuses the existing reloadNodeOutputs context derivation and returns synchronously.
• Disk / I-O / file count: OnLimit adds one omitempty string to the persisted step and node JSON, written only when set to fail. No new files, logs, or artifacts, so no retention, rotation, or growth concern across many DAGs or runs.
• Long-running processes: nothing on a scheduler, coordinator, or worker hot path changes. A continuous step with no limit never reaches the new branch.
• One incidental win from the must-fix: with the cancel guard in place, a run already being torn down stops spending a subprocess on a condition whose answer it will discard.

Tests

Coverage is now genuinely good — the final-allowed-attempt case, the eval-error case, mark_success routing, and attempt-error retention are all exercised at the intg level, with three conformance fixtures backing the spec. The fixtures are safe to run in parallel: harness.NewRunner gives each subtest its own t.TempDir(), so the shared ticks.txt name does not collide. The one remaining gap is the graceful-stop race described above.

Thanks for working through all nine points from the last round rather than just the blocking ones — the spec update in particular is more thorough than it needed to be, and tying the exit_code exclusion into the "does not define" list is the right call.

_{Reviewed with claude-opus-5 (reasoning effort: xhigh).}

Assessment

Safe to merge. Every blocker from the previous two rounds is fixed at b3ddeb6, and the one defect I still see changes no step or run status — only what the user sees for diagnosis in a single narrow combination.

The shape of the feature is right: the hard-limit branch short-circuits before the normal condition evaluation, so re-evaluating once there is the correct place to tell "exhausted" from "satisfied"; the failure is routed through finalizeFailedNode, so continue_on.mark_success keeps working; and the default (succeed, normalized to the empty string) leaves existing workflows byte-for-byte unchanged on the fast path.

Prior review feedback

Re-verified against HEAD (the branch was squashed, so 1dada68 from round 2 no longer exists; its content is in b3ddeb6):

None of the above are re-raised. I also re-checked the plumbing nobody had looked at yet: RepeatPolicy is serialized whole (no field-by-field copies in internal/runtime/transform, internal/persis, or the coordinator/worker paths), the custom UnmarshalJSON sets OnLimit, schemas/dag.schema.json is a symlink to the embedded copy so one edit covers both, and ui/src/features/visual-editor/doc/format.ts orders only top-level step keys — so the visual editor cannot silently drop a nested on_limit. No gaps there.

Should fix (not blocking)

• internal/runtime/runner.go:2234 — finalizeFailedNode returns before node.MarkError, so the limit/evaluation error is lost when continue_on.mark_success promotes the step. The ordinary path (shouldRepeatNode:2144) calls MarkError first, which is what makes spec 075's "The error remains available on the step for diagnosis" hold; line 89 of the spec this PR adds extends the evaluation-error rule to the final check at limit, so that guarantee follows it but is not honored. One line. See inline.

Nits

• runner_internal_test.go:1309 — require.NotNil(t, ctx.Err()) cannot fail (raised in round 2, still present). Inline.
• specs/075-repeat-policy.md:86 — says the attempt error is retained "alongside the repeat-limit error", but the code now also appends it to an evaluation error, which is the better behavior. Widen the wording. Inline.
• internal/spec/step.go:1050/:1101 convert rp.OnLimit four times across the two blocks; a single onLimit := ir.RepeatOnLimit(rp.OnLimit) reads better. Cosmetic.

Not blocking, no action asked

• api/v1/api.yaml still has no onLimit. Confirmed again that transformer.go:124 also omits backoff and maxIntervalSec, so the repeat-policy API surface is partial by precedent — still fine to defer to a follow-up that exposes all three.
• A dynamic limit: "${N}" passes the new on_limit: fail validation and then never fires if it resolves to 0, since the runtime gate is rp.Limit > 0. Not catchable at build time; noting it as a known edge, not a request.
• defaults.repeat_policy goes through the same buildStepRepeatPolicy, so a defaults block carrying on_limit: fail without repeat: until + condition + limit now fails the build for every step that inherits it. That is the intended loud failure, just worth knowing.

Performance and resource safety

None found by inspection. This comes from reading the changed code and its call sites — no load tests, benchmarks, or profiling were run, and CI (16 passed, 0 failed at b3ddeb6) was not re-run locally.

• CPU / process spawn: one extra EvalCondition per exhausted until loop, and only for steps that opt in. Total evaluations go from limit - 1 to limit, not 2 x limit: the hard-limit branch returns before the normal evaluation, so the limit attempt is still evaluated exactly once. failRepeatLimit runs once and then shouldRepeatNode returns false, so the ExecRepeat loop exits — no new loop, poll, or retry. The branch is unreachable for any step without on_limit: fail, and errors.Is(execErr, context.DeadlineExceeded) / r.isCanceled() at shouldRepeatNode:2097 keep it from running at all during a timeout or an already-observed stop.
• Memory / leaks: no new goroutines, timers, channels, buffers, caches, subscriptions, or file descriptors. failRepeatLimit reuses the existing reloadNodeOutputs context derivation and returns synchronously. prepareConditionCommand already reaps the condition's process group on ctx cancellation, so the extra evaluation inherits that cleanup.
• Disk / I-O / file count: OnLimit adds one omitempty string to the persisted step and node JSON, written only when set to fail. No new files, logs, or artifacts, so nothing to rotate or retain across many DAGs or runs.
• Long-running processes: nothing on a scheduler, coordinator, or worker hot path changes. A continuous step (no limit) never reaches the branch, and on_limit: fail cannot be declared without a limit.
• Concurrency: finalizeFailedNode may now run twice for the same attempt (once from handleNodeExecutionError, once here); ShouldContinue's per-attempt continueOnDecision cache makes the second call cheap and consistent, and setLastError overwrite order leaves the wrapped error — which contains the attempt error — as the run's last error.

Tests

Coverage is solid: not-met at the limit, met before the limit, met on the final allowed attempt, evaluation error at the limit, attempt-error retention, and mark_success routing at the intg level, plus three conformance fixtures and four builder cases (including on_limit validated with no resolvable mode). The fixtures are parallel-safe — harness.NewRunner gives each subtest its own t.TempDir(), so the shared ticks.txt name does not collide.

Two gaps, neither blocking: the newly normative graceful-stop rule is pinned only by a white-box unit test that sets canceled directly rather than by an end-to-end stop (reasonable — the real race is not deterministic), and TestRepeatPolicy_UntilOnLimitFailContinueOnMarkSuccess asserts status and DoneCount but not the error, which is why the mark_success diagnostics loss above slipped through.

Thanks for carrying all of round 2 through, including the items that were only "should fix" — moving the interrupt tests into the file that owns the behavior and adding the real graceful-stop case is what made the blocker verifiable rather than just asserted.

_{Reviewed with claude-opus-5 (reasoning effort: xhigh).}