Summary

The recommended pattern for consuming an upstream node's output inside an inline script: body — shown in .claude/skills/archon/examples/dag-workflow.yaml and implicitly endorsed in references/parameter-matrix.md and references/workflow-dag.md — uses a String.raw template literal:

const raw = String.raw`$fetch-issue.output`;
const issue = JSON.parse(raw);

This pattern silently breaks the moment $fetch-issue.output contains a backtick, because any backtick in the substituted content terminates the template literal early. Subsequent JSON content is then parsed as JavaScript and produces cryptic Expected ";" errors.

How I hit it

While authoring the new maintainer-standup workflow, the synthesis node returned an output_format JSON payload whose brief_markdown field contained markdown code spans like `b286ad97` and `$nodeId.output`. The downstream persist inline script copied the example pattern verbatim. The whole node failed at script-load time:

4 | committed changes; pull skipped). Dev SHA: `b286ad97`.\n- Untracked files…
                                                        ^
error: Expected ";" but found "b286ad97"
    at /Users/rasmus/Projects/cole/Archon/[eval]:4:242

Diagnostic noise was very high — the entire 70KB+ script source got dumped into the error log (related to existing #1389).

Why this is brittle

output_format payloads, AI-generated text, and anything routed through a markdown body will routinely contain backticks. The current example only works because gh issue view --json happens to produce backtick-free JSON. Any workflow that takes the example at face value and passes through realistic content will hit this.

Suggested fix

JSON is a strict subset of JavaScript expression syntax (object literals, double-quoted strings with JSON-compatible escape sequences, JSON numbers, true/false/null). The substituted output can be assigned directly without any wrapper:

const data = $fetch-issue.output;     // already a valid JS object/array literal

This avoids the backtick hazard entirely, and removes the explicit JSON.parse step. Edge cases I checked:

• Backticks inside double-quoted JSON strings: literal characters in JS, no interpretation.
• ${...} inside double-quoted JSON strings: not interpolated in JS (only template literals interpolate).
• Newlines, Unicode escapes, JSON's six escape sequences (\\\", \\\\, \\n, \\r, \\t, \\uXXXX): all are valid JS escape sequences with the same semantics.

Concrete changes proposed

1. Update .claude/skills/archon/examples/dag-workflow.yaml (the extract-labels node) to use the direct-assignment pattern, with a one-line comment explaining why it's safer than String.raw.
2. Add a short note to references/workflow-dag.md (Script Node section) and references/parameter-matrix.md (Silent failures section) calling out the backtick hazard with String.raw and recommending the direct-assignment idiom.
3. Optionally also reflect this in archon.diy/guides/script-nodes/.

Happy to send a PR if the approach is agreed.

Related

• Workflow node failure messages dump entire script body — make errors actionable for self-correcting agents #1389 — error verbosity made this much harder to diagnose.