Fix Aider engine producing no safe outputs by pinning the diff edit format

[Copilot]

Daily Go Test Stubs — Aider completed successfully but emitted zero safe outputs. Aider derives its edit format from model metadata; the proxied name openai/claude-sonnet-4.5 is unknown to Aider/LiteLLM, so it fell back to the default whole format, whose WholeFileCoder treats every fence as a file listing and cannot run shell commands at all:

Model: openai/claude-sonnet-4.5 with whole edit format
...
The LLM did not conform to the edit format.
No filename provided before ``` in file listing

Aider retried four times, gave up, and exited 0 — no files edited, no commands run, nothing appended to $GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS.

Two further defects surfaced while reading Aider 0.86.2's source:

• handle_shell_commands does commands_str.strip().splitlines() and runs each line as a separate command, so the multi-line pipelines and heredocs in the aider prompts could never have worked regardless of edit format. Aider's own system prompt states "Do not suggest multi-line shell commands."
• Prompts emitted {"type":"noop","reason":...} while the schema requires message, and create_pull_request requires a branch that was never supplied.

Changes

• shared/aider.md — pin --edit-format diff (EditBlockCoder, which supports SEARCH/REPLACE edits and shell commands); document the rationale in the engine docs comment.
• shared/aider.md — add a prompt-visible "Aider execution constraints" section (single turn, SEARCH/REPLACE edits, one complete shell command per line, single-line safe-output emission) inherited by all three aider workflows.
• daily-go-test-stubs-aider.md, daily-code-debt-aider.md — collapse bash blocks to one command per line, replace heredoc file writes with SEARCH/REPLACE instructions, and correct the safe-output payloads.
• Both daily workflows — append a || noop fallback so the run always records exactly one safe output, even if the build or commit fails:

... && git commit -m "..."&&printf'%s\n'"{\"type\":\"create_pull_request\",...,\"branch\":\"add-test-stubs-$GITHUB_RUN_ID\"}">>"$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS"||printf'%s\n''{"type":"noop","message":"Could not build or commit the generated test stubs — no pull request created."}'>>"$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS"

• Recompiled daily-go-test-stubs-aider, daily-code-debt-aider, and smoke-aider lock files.

smoke-aider needed no prompt edits (it contains no bash blocks) but picks up the engine fix and shared constraints.

Note: codeql_checker timed out and reported that it cannot be re-run; the diff is workflow markdown plus generated YAML, with no application code touched.

• Fixes[aw] Daily Go Test Stubs — Aider produced no safe outputs #53159

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[github-actions]

Thanks for the fix @app/copilot-swe-agent! 🚀

This PR addresses the workflow failure in #53159 with focused changes to the Aider workflow configuration. The investigation, fix, and documentation are thorough.

A few things to consider before finalizing:

• Remove [WIP] from title — The checklist shows all tasks are complete (marked with ✅), so the draft status can be lifted when ready.
• Test files are not applicable here — This is infrastructure/workflow work, so the absence of test file changes is expected and acceptable.
• Documentation is solid — The new shared/aider.md file clearly documents Aider execution constraints, which is valuable for future maintenance.

Once the [WIP] tag is removed and you've done final validation, this should be ready for review.

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[gh-aw-bot]

@copilot quick triage for this PR:

• Please refresh the branch with the latest base if GitHub allows it.
• Then run the pr-finisher skill to finalize validation, remove the [WIP] tag when ready, and prepare this PR for maintainer review.
• There are no failed checks recorded in the compact candidate data for this run.

Generated by 👨‍🍳 PR Sous Chef · gpt54 · 3.3 AIC · ⌖ 7.36 AIC · ⊞ 8.8K · ◷
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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Pins Aider to diff editing and updates workflows to emit valid safe outputs.

Changes:

• Adds Aider execution constraints.
• Converts prompts to single-line commands and valid JSONL outputs.
• Regenerates affected workflow locks.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.github/workflows/shared/aider.md	Pins diff format and documents constraints.
.github/workflows/daily-go-test-stubs-aider.md	Revises discovery, edits, and safe outputs.
.github/workflows/daily-go-test-stubs-aider.lock.yml	Regenerates compiled workflow.
.github/workflows/daily-code-debt-aider.md	Revises cleanup and PR flow.
.github/workflows/daily-code-debt-aider.lock.yml	Regenerates compiled workflow.
.github/workflows/smoke-aider.lock.yml	Applies shared Aider configuration.

Review details

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Suppressed comments (3)

.github/workflows/daily-code-debt-aider.md:75

• This commit runs inside the AWF container, but the generated Aider step has no Git author/committer environment and the host-side global Git config is not visible in the sandbox (pkg/workflow/git_configuration_steps.go:101-108). Therefore every successful cleanup reaches git commit, fails for missing identity, and records noop instead of opening a PR. Configure the identity on the commit itself.

GOCACHE=/tmp/go-cache GOMODCACHE=/tmp/go-mod go build ./... && git checkout -b code-debt-$GITHUB_RUN_ID && git add -A && git commit -m "Resolve actionable TODO/FIXME comments" && printf '%s\n' "{\"type\":\"create_pull_request\",\"title\":\"Resolve actionable TODO/FIXME comments\",\"body\":\"Automated cleanup of self-contained TODO and FIXME comments.\",\"branch\":\"code-debt-$GITHUB_RUN_ID\"}" >> "$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS" || printf '%s\n' '{"type":"noop","message":"Could not build or commit the cleanup changes — no pull request created."}' >> "$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS"

.github/workflows/daily-go-test-stubs-aider.md:70

• This commit runs inside the AWF container, but the generated Aider step has no Git author/committer environment and the host-side global Git config is not visible in the sandbox (pkg/workflow/git_configuration_steps.go:101-108). As a result, git commit fails with an unknown author and this path emits noop whenever stubs are generated. Configure the identity on the commit itself.

GOCACHE=/tmp/go-cache GOMODCACHE=/tmp/go-mod go build ./... && git checkout -b add-test-stubs-$GITHUB_RUN_ID && git add -A && git commit -m "Add test stubs for uncovered packages" && printf '%s\n' "{\"type\":\"create_pull_request\",\"title\":\"Add test stubs for uncovered packages\",\"body\":\"Automatically generated test stubs for packages with zero test coverage. Stubs use t.Skip and are ready to be filled in.\",\"branch\":\"add-test-stubs-$GITHUB_RUN_ID\"}" >> "$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS" || printf '%s\n' '{"type":"noop","message":"Could not build or commit the generated test stubs — no pull request created."}' >> "$GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS"

.github/workflows/daily-go-test-stubs-aider.md:52

• This command is not executed until after Aider has produced its single model reply, so the model can never see its output before being asked to select packages and create stubs. With AIDER_GIT=false, the run also has no repo map or source files in context. Move discovery before the Aider invocation and inject the results/files into the prompt, or use an engine flow that supports another model turn after command execution.

for pkg in $(find . -name '*.go' -not -name '*_test.go' -not -path './vendor/*' -not -path './.git/*' | sed 's|/[^/]*\.go$||' | sort -u); do [ -z "$(find "$pkg" -maxdepth 1 -name '*_test.go')" ] && echo "$pkg"; done | head -5

• Files reviewed: 6/6 changed files
• Comments generated: 2
• Review effort level: Balanced

[github-actions]

🎉 This pull request is included in a new release.

Release: v0.87.1