fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails by DukeDeSouth · Pull Request #10711 · openclaw/openclaw

DukeDeSouth · 2026-02-06T21:44:27Z

Human View

Summary

When the compaction safeguard cannot produce a real summary (no model configured, no API key available, or the LLM call fails), it currently returns a "Summary unavailable" fallback and still truncates history via firstKeptEntryId. This causes irreversible data loss — users lose older conversation context with no way to recover it.

Changes

3 failure paths in compaction-safeguard.ts now return { cancel: true } instead of { compaction: { summary: fallbackSummary, ... } }
- !model → cancel
- !apiKey → cancel
- catch (error) → cancel
Added console.warn() on each path for observability
Updated the existing catch-block log message from "truncating history" to "cancelling compaction to preserve history"

Why `cancel` works

The pi-coding-agent framework explicitly supports SessionBeforeCompactResult.cancel — when the extension returns { cancel: true }, the framework throws "Compaction cancelled" and preserves the full message history. The session will retry compaction on the next turn when conditions (model/key/API) may have recovered.

Test plan

New regression test: cancels when no model is available
New regression test: cancels when no API key is available
New regression test: cancels when summarizeInStages throws (mocked)
All 20 tests pass (npx vitest run src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts)
Existing 17 tests remain green (no regressions)

AI View (DCCE Protocol v1.0)

Metadata

Generator: Claude (Anthropic) via Cursor IDE
Methodology: AI-assisted development with human oversight and review

AI Contribution Summary

Solution design and implementation
Test development (20 test cases)

Verification Steps Performed

Reproduced the reported issue
Analyzed source code to identify root cause
Implemented and tested the fix
Ran full test suite (20 tests passing)

Human Review Guidance

Core changes are in: compaction-safeguard.ts, SessionBeforeCompactResult.cancel, console.warn

Made with M7 Cursor

Greptile Overview

Greptile Summary

Updates compaction-safeguard to return { cancel: true } (with console.warn) when no model, no API key, or summarization throws, so history is preserved instead of truncated with a fallback summary.
Adds regression tests that exercise the three failure paths by capturing the session_before_compact handler and mocking summarizeInStages.
Keeps the existing compaction/summarization logic intact for the success path, still returning a compaction payload when summarization succeeds.

Confidence Score: 3/5

Not safe to merge until a compile-time error in the extension is fixed
The behavioral change (cancel compaction on failure) is well-contained and covered by new tests, but the current compaction-safeguard.ts includes a duplicated const declaration that will fail TypeScript/JS parsing and block builds.
src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts

greptile-apps

_{2 files reviewed, 2 comments}

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greptile-apps · 2026-02-06T21:46:00Z

Additional Comments (2)

src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts
Duplicate variable redeclared

newContentRatio is declared twice in the same block, which will cause a TS/JS syntax error and fail the build:

const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;
const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;

Remove one of these declarations.

            const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;

Prompt To Fix With AI

This is a comment left during a code review.
Path: src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts
Line: 213:217

Comment:
**Duplicate variable redeclared**

`newContentRatio` is declared twice in the same block, which will cause a TS/JS syntax error and fail the build:

```ts
const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;
const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;
```

Remove one of these declarations.

```suggestion
            const newContentRatio = (newContentTokens / contextWindowTokens) * 100;
```

How can I resolve this? If you propose a fix, please make it concise.

src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts
Flaky Date.now() in test

This test constructs an AgentMessage with timestamp: Date.now(). If other tests/assertions depend on stable timestamps (or snapshots), this can introduce nondeterminism. Prefer a fixed timestamp (e.g. 0 or a constant) for test data.

          messagesToSummarize: [{ role: "user", content: "hello", timestamp: 0 }],

Prompt To Fix With AI

This is a comment left during a code review.
Path: src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts
Line: 102:105

Comment:
**Flaky `Date.now()` in test**

This test constructs an `AgentMessage` with `timestamp: Date.now()`. If other tests/assertions depend on stable timestamps (or snapshots), this can introduce nondeterminism. Prefer a fixed timestamp (e.g. `0` or a constant) for test data.

```suggestion
          messagesToSummarize: [{ role: "user", content: "hello", timestamp: 0 }],
```

How can I resolve this? If you propose a fix, please make it concise.

DukeDeSouth · 2026-02-07T04:10:17Z

Thanks for the review! Addressing both points:

Duplicate newContentRatio: This appears to be a false positive — there is only one declaration of const newContentRatio in the file (line 219). You can verify with grep -c "const newContentRatio" src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts → 1.
Date.now() in tests: Valid point — fixed in ca9b6a4. All test timestamps now use a fixed value (0) to prevent nondeterminism.

Drickon · 2026-02-09T02:44:05Z

Clean fix. All three failure paths now return { cancel: true } instead of truncating with a useless placeholder. Good cleanup removing fallbackSummary too.

One thing that could strengthen it: a live integration test verifying that summarization works when model and key are available. The failure paths are covered by unit tests, but for an LLM integration, a test hitting a real API (skipped in CI, opt-in via env var) would help catch regressions mocks can miss.

Also filed #10099 independently with the same bug report, linking for reference.

DukeDeSouth · 2026-02-09T03:15:44Z

@Drickon Thanks for the review and the kind words! Really appreciate you taking the time.

You're right — just pushed a fix for the leftover FALLBACK_SUMMARY constant that was causing the lint failure. Should have caught that in the first pass, my bad.

Re: live integration test — great suggestion. I'll look into adding an opt-in test gated behind an env var (e.g. OPENCLAW_INTEGRATION_TEST=1) that hits a real model endpoint. That way CI skips it by default but devs can validate locally. Will follow up on that separately.

Also noted the link to #10099 — thanks for the independent confirmation of the issue.

openclaw-barnacle · 2026-02-21T04:30:19Z

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale due to inactivity.
Please add updates or it will be closed.

DukeDeSouth · 2026-02-21T13:40:02Z

Rebased onto current main — merge conflicts resolved. All changes intact: three failure paths return { cancel: true }, FALLBACK_SUMMARY removed, deterministic test timestamps.

The conflict was in compaction-safeguard.e2e.test.ts where upstream added as unknown as AgentMessage type casts — kept both the type casts and our deterministic timestamp: 0 values.

@Drickon Re: integration test for the success path — still on my list, will follow up in a separate PR to keep this one focused on the cancel-on-failure fix.

…on fails When the compaction safeguard cannot generate a summary (no model, no API key, or LLM error), it previously returned a "Summary unavailable" fallback string and still truncated history. This caused irreversible data loss - older messages were discarded even though no meaningful summary was produced. Now returns `{ cancel: true }` in all three failure paths so the framework aborts compaction entirely and preserves the full conversation history. Fixes openclaw#10332 Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

vincentkoc · 2026-02-23T15:22:58Z

Rebased this branch onto current main and resolved conflicts with the newer compaction/test layout.

What I updated:

Kept the safeguard behavior change to return { cancel: true } when summary generation cannot proceed (missing model, missing API key, or summarize failure), so history is preserved instead of truncating to fallback text.
Ported tests in src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts to assert cancel behavior for the runtime-model and missing-model paths.
Added changelog entry under 2026.2.23 (Unreleased) -> Fixes for #10711 with credits to @DukeDeSouth and @vincentkoc.

Validation run after rebase:

pnpm exec oxfmt --check src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts
pnpm vitest run src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts (22/22 passing)

This should now be merge-ready from a conflicts/tests/changelog standpoint.

…on fails (openclaw#10711) * fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails When the compaction safeguard cannot generate a summary (no model, no API key, or LLM error), it previously returned a "Summary unavailable" fallback string and still truncated history. This caused irreversible data loss - older messages were discarded even though no meaningful summary was produced. Now returns `{ cancel: true }` in all three failure paths so the framework aborts compaction entirely and preserves the full conversation history. Fixes openclaw#10332 Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * fix: use deterministic timestamps in compaction safeguard tests Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * Changelog: note compaction cancellation safeguard fix --------- Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> Co-authored-by: Vincent Koc <vincentkoc@ieee.org>

Drickon · 2026-02-27T15:08:16Z

Makes sense keeping it focused. Look forward to the follow-up PR.

…on fails (openclaw#10711) * fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails When the compaction safeguard cannot generate a summary (no model, no API key, or LLM error), it previously returned a "Summary unavailable" fallback string and still truncated history. This caused irreversible data loss - older messages were discarded even though no meaningful summary was produced. Now returns `{ cancel: true }` in all three failure paths so the framework aborts compaction entirely and preserves the full conversation history. Fixes openclaw#10332 Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * fix: use deterministic timestamps in compaction safeguard tests Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * Changelog: note compaction cancellation safeguard fix --------- Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> Co-authored-by: Vincent Koc <vincentkoc@ieee.org>

…on fails (openclaw#10711) * fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails When the compaction safeguard cannot generate a summary (no model, no API key, or LLM error), it previously returned a "Summary unavailable" fallback string and still truncated history. This caused irreversible data loss - older messages were discarded even though no meaningful summary was produced. Now returns `{ cancel: true }` in all three failure paths so the framework aborts compaction entirely and preserves the full conversation history. Fixes openclaw#10332 Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * fix: use deterministic timestamps in compaction safeguard tests Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * Changelog: note compaction cancellation safeguard fix --------- Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> Co-authored-by: Vincent Koc <vincentkoc@ieee.org> (cherry picked from commit ea47ab2) # Conflicts: # src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.test.ts # src/agents/pi-extensions/compaction-safeguard.ts

…on fails (openclaw#10711) * fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails When the compaction safeguard cannot generate a summary (no model, no API key, or LLM error), it previously returned a "Summary unavailable" fallback string and still truncated history. This caused irreversible data loss - older messages were discarded even though no meaningful summary was produced. Now returns `{ cancel: true }` in all three failure paths so the framework aborts compaction entirely and preserves the full conversation history. Fixes openclaw#10332 Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * fix: use deterministic timestamps in compaction safeguard tests Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> * Changelog: note compaction cancellation safeguard fix --------- Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com> Co-authored-by: Vincent Koc <vincentkoc@ieee.org>

openclaw-barnacle bot added the agents Agent runtime and tooling label Feb 6, 2026

greptile-apps bot reviewed Feb 6, 2026

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Drickon mentioned this pull request Feb 9, 2026

Compaction safeguard silently loses messages when summarization fails #10099

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thewilloftheshadow force-pushed the main branch from bfc1ccb to f92900f Compare February 15, 2026 18:46

openclaw-barnacle bot added the stale Marked as stale due to inactivity label Feb 21, 2026

DukeDeSouth force-pushed the fix/compaction-abort-on-summary-failure branch from 0166847 to 521498c Compare February 21, 2026 13:39

openclaw-barnacle bot added the size: S label Feb 21, 2026

vincentkoc added the dedupe:parent Primary canonical item in dedupe cluster label Feb 23, 2026

DukeDeSouth and others added 3 commits February 23, 2026 10:19

fix: use deterministic timestamps in compaction safeguard tests

7f62ff1

Replace Date.now() with fixed timestamp (0) in test data to prevent nondeterministic behavior in snapshot-based or order-dependent tests. Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

Changelog: note compaction cancellation safeguard fix

eb9e4a5

vincentkoc force-pushed the fix/compaction-abort-on-summary-failure branch from 521498c to eb9e4a5 Compare February 23, 2026 15:22

vincentkoc merged commit ea47ab2 into openclaw:main Feb 23, 2026
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vincentkoc mentioned this pull request Feb 23, 2026

Compaction summary returns 'unavailable' despite no API errors #19634

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vabole mentioned this pull request Feb 23, 2026

ops: decision needed for upstream sync (3 disputed files) vabole/openclaw#3

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github-actions bot mentioned this pull request Feb 23, 2026

📡 Upstream Digest — 2026-02-23 16:45 UTC curtismercier/openclaw-mods#110

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arjunaskykok mentioned this pull request Feb 26, 2026

fix/test a2ui bundle preflight #27345

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github-actions bot mentioned this pull request Mar 1, 2026

cherry-pick: upstream bugfix commits (2026-03-01-0443) hughdidit/DAISy-Agency#140

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fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails#10711

fix: cancel compaction instead of truncating history when summarization fails#10711
vincentkoc merged 3 commits intoopenclaw:mainfrom
DukeDeSouth:fix/compaction-abort-on-summary-failure

DukeDeSouth commented Feb 6, 2026 •

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Why cancel works

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Confidence Score: 3/5

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