Q Workflow Optimization Report

Issues Found (from live data)

Documentation Noob Tester

• Run Analyzed: #23799222810
• Duration: 32.5 minutes (timeout at 30min limit)
• Turns: 69 (vs 42 in successful baseline run #23491282388)
• Posture: read_only — agent never reached the discussion creation step
• Issues Identified:
  • Workflow timed out before completing: 69 turns × avg 28.2s/turn ≈ 32.5 min > 30 min timeout
  • Agent visited 8+ pages via curl analysis instead of the prescribed 5, spending ~27 extra turns
  • Unnecessary npm run build in prompt (dev server doesn't require a prior build)
  • No page-visit limit enforced — agent kept analyzing without stopping to write the report
  • Playwright TimeoutError at turn ~65 caused extra fallback turns

Changes Made

docs-noob-tester.md

• Increased timeout-minutes: 30 → 45 to give the agent adequate headroom (evidence: 69 turns × 28.2s ≈ 32.5 min)
• Removed npm run build from Step 1 — unnecessary for the Astro dev server, saves ~2 agent turns
• Reduced pages from 5+ to exactly 3 — added explicit instruction "Visit exactly these 3 pages — no more" and "After visiting all 3 pages, immediately proceed to the report"
• Imported shared/keep-it-short.md to discourage verbose multi-turn analysis
• Updated success criteria to match reduced scope (3 pages instead of "at least 5")

Expected Improvements

• Agent should complete within ~45 turns instead of 69 (3 pages × ~5 turns + setup + report)
• Discussion report will now be created before the timeout
• Eliminated Playwright-timeout recovery overhead by keeping focused scope
• Removed unnecessary build step saves 2–3 turns

Validation

✅ docs-noob-tester.md compiled successfully (no errors or warnings)

Note: .lock.yml files will be regenerated automatically after merge.

References

• Failed run: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/23799222810

• Issue: [aw] Documentation Noob Tester failed #23734

• Baseline successful run: #23491282388 (42 turns, completed successfully)

• Fixes [aw] Documentation Noob Tester failed #23734

# Download the patch from the workflow run
gh run download 23801415324 -n agent -D /tmp/agent-23801415324

# Create a new branch
git checkout -b q/fix-docs-noob-tester-timeout-0ca139a5ad2c67e5 main

# Apply the patch (--3way handles cross-repo patches)
git am --3way /tmp/agent-23801415324/aw-q-fix-docs-noob-tester-timeout.patch

# Push the branch and create the pull request
git push origin q/fix-docs-noob-tester-timeout-0ca139a5ad2c67e5
gh pr create --title '[q] fix: reduce docs-noob-tester scope to prevent timeout (#23734)' --base main --head q/fix-docs-noob-tester-timeout-0ca139a5ad2c67e5 --repo github/gh-aw

🎩 Equipped by Q · ◷

• expires on Apr 2, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC