fix(email-triage): don't surface newsletters as approval cards when triage 529s

[nolanmak]

Symptom

Newsletter / marketing emails (Substack, Patagonia, etc.) were surfacing as Discord approval "draft" cards even though the is_human_sender filter (#217) is supposed to skip them. The filter itself works — it correctly skipped 8 GitHub notification emails the same day.

Root cause

The leak only triggers when the first triage call hits a transient Claude 529 Overloaded (which surfaces as non-JSON text, so parse_decision fails). On that path:

1. process_email logged a status='error' action row and returned before the DecisionKind::Reply arm — the only place is_human_sender / is_event_blast run.
2. That one row caused two failures:
   • It tripped has_open_action (matches status IN ('pending','error')), permanently blocking the poll loop from re-triaging the email.
   • It was scooped by list_retryable_replies (WHERE status='error', no decision-kind filter) into retry_once → dispatch_reply, which force-drafts an empty body and posts an approval card with no automated-sender gate.

The retry queue was only ever meant for drafting-stage failures (triage already decided reply, a real draft exists, create_draft/post_approval failed). A triage-stage failure has run no gates and has no draft, so treating it as a retryable reply is wrong for junk and humans.

Evidence from the live DB: every leaked pending card had a draftBody length of 0 (no real draft ever generated), while every legitimate human reply had a non-empty draft. Logs showed triage parse failed: 529 Overloaded followed ~one retry-interval later by approval card posted.

Fix

Drop the log_action(Error) call in the triage parse-failure branch. With no action row written, the email stays unread/unprocessed and the next poll re-runs full triage + all gates — identical to how a network Err from reasoner.call (the ? one line above) already behaves. Fixes both the junk leak and the empty-draft brokenness in one edit.

Testing

• New triage_parse_failure_does_not_create_retryable_action reproduces the exact production scenario (a substack.com sender whose first triage 529s) through the real process_email + retry_once paths and asserts: no action row, nothing retryable, no approval card, and a re-triage skip.
• Full augmentagent-channel-email suite: 86 passed / 0 failed. Both existing retry tests stay green (the fix only touches the triage-stage branch, not the drafting-stage error paths). Release build clean.

Deliberately out of scope (follow-ups)

• One-time cleanup of the ~11 already-leaked pending dlen=0 rows in the live data.db (operational, not a code change).
• Optional defense-in-depth gate inside dispatch_reply itself (belt-and-suspenders; not needed for correctness once triage-stage failures stop entering the retry queue).

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes

  • Improved handling of triage parse errors so failed emails are no longer marked with an open action.
  • Emails that hit a temporary triage failure will now be reprocessed on the next poll, avoiding incorrect retry behavior.
  • Automated-sender checks now apply correctly after a retry, preventing unnecessary drafting or notifications for skipped messages.

• Tests

  • Added coverage for triage failure and retry behavior to prevent regressions.

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

GmailChannel::process_email no longer records an error action row when triage parsing fails. A regression test now covers a non-JSON first poll, retry behavior, re-triage on the next poll, automated-sender skipping, and completion without Discord posting.

Changes

Triage parse failure retry handling

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Process triage parse failures crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs	process_email returns triage parse failures without persisting an error action row.
Regression test for retry flow crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs	The new test covers a non-JSON first poll, retry_once, second-poll re-triage, automated-sender skip, and completion without Discord posting.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• nolanmak/MyAgentAssistant#223: Shares the GmailChannel::process_email triage/retry path and the automated-sender skip flow exercised by this PR’s regression test.

Poem

I hopped through triage, soft and bright,
And left no error row in sight.
A second poll, a careful glance,
Then skip! the newsletter had its chance.
🐰✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the main fix: preventing newsletter approval cards after a triage 529 error.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	Docstring coverage is 100.00% which is sufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/email-triage-retry-leak

---

Thanks for using CodeRabbit! It's free for OSS, and your support helps us grow. If you like it, consider giving us a shout-out.

❤️ Share

• X
• Mastodon
• Reddit
• LinkedIn

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.}

[coderabbitai]

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs (1)

2477-2503: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🔵 Trivial | ⚡ Quick win

Assert the full no-state/no-Discord contract.

This test’s comments say “NO action row” and “no Discord posting,” but it only checks no open action and no approval-card posts. Add checks for zero action rows after pass 1 and zero flag notices so the regression can’t slip through via a non-open action or flag notice.

Suggested test hardening

         assert!(
             !store.has_open_action("m-529").unwrap(),
             "a triage-stage failure must NOT create an action row"
         );
+        let action_rows = store
+            .with_conn(|c| {
+                c.query_row(
+                    "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM actions WHERE messageId = 'm-529'",
+                    [],
+                    |r| r.get::<_, i64>(0),
+                )
+            })
+            .unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(action_rows, 0, "triage parse failure must not create any action row");
         assert!(!store.is_email_complete("m-529").unwrap());
         assert_eq!(broker.posts.lock().unwrap().len(), 0);
+        assert_eq!(broker.flag_posts.lock().unwrap().len(), 0);
 
         // --- Retry tick: with no errored row, nothing is retryable, so the leak
         // path (retry_once -> dispatch_reply, ungated) never runs.
         let retried = ch.retry_once().await.unwrap();
@@
         let out2 = ch.poll_once().await.unwrap();
         assert_eq!(out2.skipped, 1, "re-triage routes the automated sender to the skip gate");
         assert_eq!(out2.awaiting_approval, 0);
         assert_eq!(broker.posts.lock().unwrap().len(), 0);
+        assert_eq!(broker.flag_posts.lock().unwrap().len(), 0);
         assert!(store.is_email_complete("m-529").unwrap());

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs` around lines 2477 - 2503,
This test only asserts that there is no open action and no approval-card post,
but it does not fully enforce the no-state/no-Discord contract. Strengthen the
assertions around the existing retry and poll flow in channel.rs by checking
that the store has zero action rows after pass 1 and that no flag notices were
created or posted, using the same store/broker handles already exercised by
ch.retry_once() and ch.poll_once().

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Nitpick comments:
In `@crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs`:
- Around line 2477-2503: This test only asserts that there is no open action and
no approval-card post, but it does not fully enforce the no-state/no-Discord
contract. Strengthen the assertions around the existing retry and poll flow in
channel.rs by checking that the store has zero action rows after pass 1 and that
no flag notices were created or posted, using the same store/broker handles
already exercised by ch.retry_once() and ch.poll_once().

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: c474a128-11f3-4f36-99c6-74dd2bb34626

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 5779157 and 00253e7.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• crates/augmentagent-channel-email/src/channel.rs