[CI Failure Doctor] Heredoc tests expect PROMPT_EOF instead of prefixed delimiter

[github-actions]

🏥 CI Failure Investigation - Run #34894

Summary

The test job now fails because the heredoc helpers transitioned to GenerateHeredocDelimiter("PROMPT") (which returns GH_AW_PROMPT_EOF), but the unit tests still asserted on the literal PROMPT_EOF markers.

Failure Details

• Run: 21915469876
• Commit: 10699a3
• Trigger: push

Root Cause Analysis

WritePromptTextToYAML builds heredocs using GenerateHeredocDelimiter, so the generated shell steps look for GH_AW_PROMPT_EOF. The empty-text test (TestWritePromptTextToYAML_EmptyText) still searches for cat << 'PROMPT_EOF' and PROMPT_EOF, so it never finds any heredoc blocks and fails during initialization, making the entire github.com/github/gh-aw/pkg/workflow package fail.

Failed Jobs and Errors

• test: TestWritePromptTextToYAML_EmptyText reports "Expected at least 1 heredoc block even for empty text" because the strings it looks for no longer exist.

Investigation Findings

• Log output shows the package-level failure and the helper panic message. There are no logical errors in the helper; the mismatch is purely in the string literal being asserted in the test.
• The failure appeared right after the template injection validator change introduced prefixed delimiters, so the old literal no longer matches the runtime behavior.

Recommended Actions

• Update the heredoc expectations in pkg/workflow/sh_test.go to build the expected command/marker strings from GenerateHeredocDelimiter("PROMPT") so the tests stay in sync with any future delimiter changes.
• Re-run go test ./pkg/workflow (under go 1.25) to validate that no other assertions rely on the old literal.

Prevention Strategies

Always derive heredoc markers from GenerateHeredocDelimiter (or a thin helper) when asserting on shell steps, and avoid hard-coding PROMPT_EOF so tests continue working whenever the delimiter format evolves.

AI Team Self-Improvement

Add a reminder to instructions.md such as: "When checking generated heredocs, use GenerateHeredocDelimiter instead of hard-coded PROMPT_EOF so tests follow any prefix changes."

Historical Context

No prior CI Failure Doctor investigation has captured this exact issue; the failure started with the latest prefixed delimiter support.

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• expires on Feb 12, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

[github-actions]

Run #21915910971 (CI) is failing for the same reason and more:

• The helpers now emit GH_AW_PROMPT_EOF, so the pkg/workflow/sh_test.go expectations for PROMPT_EOF all return zero matches (see TestWritePromptTextToYAML_*).
• The unified prompt step still writes/reads plain PROMPT_EOF and never emits GH_AW_PROMPT_EOF, so heredoc_interpolation_test, safe_inputs_mode_test, and others that look for the prefixed marker now miss their sections (e.g., the entry-point lookup still searches for << 'EOFSI').
• The safe-inputs extraction also assumes the old delimiters (EOFSI), so we never capture the startHttpServer lines when the delimiter moved under GenerateHeredocDelimiter.

A single fix would be to derive every heredoc marker from GenerateHeredocDelimiter (both in generators and tests) so everything uses GH_AW_*_EOF consistently; until then the test job keeps failing.

Run link: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/21915910971

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[github-actions]

Observed the same failure again in run 21916806056 (docs: unbloat common-issues.md for clarity). The test job still fails while running TestHeredocInterpolation/TestWritePromptTextToYAML*/TestSafeInputsHTTPMode because they are asserting on the literal PROMPT_EOF markers instead of the GH_AW_* delimiters produced by GenerateHeredocDelimiter. I also attempted a local go test ./pkg/workflow run for confirmation, but Go tried to download toolchain go1.25 and the download was blocked (golang.org/toolchain@v0.0.1-go1.25.0.linux-amd64: Forbidden), so I couldn’t reproduce locally. Please let me know if you’d like any additional logs from this run.

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[github-actions]

Confirmed the same failure recurred in run #34910 (commit a3ad5b916611be0571684e9bbd377d5ae996d6f6). The test job again ends with TestWritePromptTextToYAML_* all reporting zero heredoc blocks (e.g., sh_test.go:21: Expected 1 heredoc block for small text, got 0) because the assertions still look for the literal PROMPT_EOF markers. At runtime WritePromptTextToYAML uses GenerateHeredocDelimiter("PROMPT"), which emits GH_AW_PROMPT_EOF, so the search/count helpers never find a match.

Reproducing locally with go test -run WritePromptTextToYAML ./pkg/workflow demonstrates the same failure. Please keep the existing issue open—this run just confirms the problem persists across pushes.

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