Files
roboco/docs/rag/standards/python-errors.md
T
879afc14a4 Board Program LEARN context, ruff 0.16, and verb-rejection observability (#700)
* fix(board): LEARN decisions name the item, not its per-cycle index

A cycle's reject reasons are rendered into the NEXT cycle's exploration
prompt, but the ref recorded alongside each reason was the item's stored
id (item-0/item-1) — a per-cycle index that means something different
every cycle and appears nowhere the explorer can resolve. The reason
survived the loop; what it was about did not.

Record the item's title instead, via a shared learn_ref() helper (falls
back to the id when title-less, and reads target_task_title for Scales,
whose items name the live task they mutate).

* chore(lint): satisfy ruff 0.16 — keyword-only signatures and markdown formatting

The dev toolchain resolved ruff 0.16.0, which stabilises PLR0917 (too many
positional arguments) and formats python code blocks inside markdown. Both
fired repo-wide and neither had anything to do with the code they flagged.

- 36 signatures gain a `*` so their tail arguments are keyword-only, and
  the 104 call sites that passed them positionally are converted. mypy was
  the safety net for the static ones; the full suite caught nine more that
  only bind at runtime (the MCP tool functions, whose real callers already
  pass named JSON arguments).
- 28 markdown files reformatted by 0.16's code-block formatter.
- One RUF036 (`None` mid-union) autofixed in the GitLab provider.

* fix(gateway): log the reason when a verb rejects

A rejected envelope rides an HTTP 200, its body is never logged, and there
is no trace table — so in the access log a verb an agent could not satisfy
looks identical to one that worked. On 2026-07-25 four Board Programs
(Periscope, Sentinel, Scales, Barfly) each POSTed their propose verb three
or four times, persisted nothing, and left their exploration tasks PENDING;
the reason was unrecoverable afterwards, from the logs or from the agents'
own transcripts.

Log error/message/remediate/missing plus the calling agent at
envelope_to_response — the one chokepoint every v1 flow and do route
returns through. Success envelopes stay silent.

---------

Co-authored-by: Renn F <rennf93@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-07-26 15:07:28 +02:00

1.7 KiB

Python Error Handling

Never Bare Except

Always catch specific exceptions:

# Good
try:
    result = await service.process(data)
except ValidationError as e:
    logger.warning("Validation failed", error=str(e))
    raise
except ServiceUnavailableError:
    await retry_with_backoff(service.process, data)

# Bad - NEVER do this
try:
    result = await service.process(data)
except:
    pass

Custom Exceptions

Define domain-specific exceptions:

class TaskError(Exception):
    """Base exception for task operations."""


class TaskNotFoundError(TaskError):
    """Task does not exist."""


class TaskAlreadyClaimedError(TaskError):
    """Task is already claimed."""


# Usage
if task is None:
    raise TaskNotFoundError(f"Task {task_id} not found")

Preserve Exception Chain

When re-raising:

# Good - preserves chain
try:
    result = await external_api.call()
except ExternalAPIError as e:
    raise ServiceError("External API failed") from e

# Bad - loses traceback
except ExternalAPIError:
    raise ServiceError("External API failed")

Structured Logging

Use structlog, NEVER print:

import structlog

logger = structlog.get_logger(__name__)

# Good
logger.info(
    "Task completed",
    task_id=task.id,
    duration_ms=elapsed,
)

# Bad - NEVER use print
print(f"Task {task.id} completed")

Validation at Boundaries

Validate external input at API boundaries:

# API boundary - validate
@router.post("/tasks")
async def create_task(request: TaskCreate) -> TaskResponse:
    # Pydantic validates automatically
    ...


# Internal service - trust validated data
async def process_task(task: Task) -> None:
    # No need to re-validate
    ...