## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - The recovery service restores execution when a task loses its live
path.
> - The service retries the original agent for a limited number of
attempts.
> - The old fallback could select a manager or an executive and wake
that agent.
> - That fallback changed the effective recovery owner without a board
decision.
> - This pull request keeps the source owner and gives the exhausted
recovery decision to the board.
> - The benefit is a clear ownership rule with no automatic task
takeover.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
Refs: #11807
Refs: #11817
**What existing behavior does this improve?**
This improves stranded-task recovery in the server and the recovery
action card in the board UI.
**Subsystem affected**
Cross-cutting: server recovery orchestration, recovery observability,
board UI, and execution documentation.
**Current behavior**
Paperclip retries the original agent for a limited number of attempts.
After the retry limit, it can select a manager, task creator, CTO, or
CEO as a recovery owner. It can then wake that substitute agent. The
source task keeps its assignee, but the automatic substitute wake
creates an implicit takeover path.
**Proposed behavior**
Paperclip keeps the limited retry path for the original agent. If
recovery is exhausted or unsafe, Paperclip creates one board-owned
source recovery action. It keeps both source assignee fields. It does
not wake a substitute agent. The board can repair, retry the original
owner, explicitly reassign, or resolve the task.
**Reason and benefit**
Source task ownership must remain stable until a person or an approved
policy changes it. The new rule removes implicit manager and executive
takeover. It also gives operators clear evidence through the
`board_escalation_no_takeover_v1` routing marker.
**Breaking changes**
Automatic recovery no longer wakes a manager or executive after the
original-agent retry limit. Existing active agent-owned recovery actions
remain visible and can resolve. Paperclip does not schedule a new
takeover wake for those legacy actions.
## What Changed
- Route exhausted and unsafe stranded recovery to a board-owned source
action.
- Preserve agent and user assignee fields during automatic escalation.
- Keep limited same-agent continuity repair and provider quota
monitoring.
- Stop new manager, creator, CTO, and CEO recovery wakes.
- Keep legacy agent-owned recovery actions readable and resolvable.
- Add the routing marker to new board escalation evidence and
observability.
- Update recovery notices, the board UI card, tests, and execution
documentation.
## Verification
- Run `pnpm -r typecheck`.
- Run `pnpm build`.
- Run `pnpm check:token-gates`.
- Run `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/server exec vitest run
src/__tests__/heartbeat-process-recovery.test.ts`.
- Run `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/server exec vitest run
src/__tests__/heartbeat-workspace-branch-containment.test.ts`.
- Run the focused recovery and UI Vitest files changed by this pull
request.
- Confirm that a paused or over-budget source owner creates one board
action, keeps the source assignee, and creates no substitute wake.
## Risks
- Operators must now make the final recovery decision after the
original-agent limit.
- Legacy agent-owned actions use their stored contract. This avoids a
rollout-time ownership rewrite.
- No database migration or API response shape changes are included.
- The tests cover concurrent escalation, paused and over-budget owners,
legacy actions, provider quota monitoring, and UI presentation.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
OpenAI Codex with GPT-5. The hosted exact model revision and context
window are not exposed. Reasoning, tool use, and code execution were
enabled.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - The control plane must keep each active issue on a clear execution
or recovery path.
> - A missing issue disposition can require more than one bounded repair
attempt.
> - A server restart could lose that repair path or move source
ownership to the recovery owner.
> - A parked or expired retry could also make the user interface show a
false healthy state.
> - Concurrent recovery loops must not schedule the same repair attempt
twice.
> - This pull request keeps retry state durable, makes scheduling
atomic, and keeps source ownership stable.
> - The benefit is that recovery continues after a restart and operators
see the correct state.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
**What happened?**
A run that ended without a valid issue disposition could lose its repair
path after a server restart. Manager recovery could also change the
source owner. In addition, a parked or expired retry could make the
issue look healthy when no active work existed. Concurrent
reconciliation could also schedule the same repair attempt twice.
**Expected behavior**
Paperclip must keep bounded source and manager repair attempts across
restarts. Recovery ownership must stay separate from source issue
ownership. The server and user interface must report only a live retry
as active work. Each repair attempt must be scheduled at most once per
company.
**Steps to reproduce**
1. Start an agent run on an issue.
2. End the run without a valid issue disposition.
3. Let the first repair attempt schedule a retry.
4. Restart the server, let the retry time pass without a live run, or
start two reconciliation loops together.
5. Observe that the repair path can stop, the issue can show a false
healthy state, or duplicate retries can be created.
**Paperclip version or commit**
The problem existed on `master` before candidate head
`d8e620fe86bade7df18decac332007f5821ae04f`.
**Deployment mode**
The problem affects self-hosted servers and local builds that use
automatic recovery.
## What Changed
- Persist bounded source-owner and manager repair lineages with stable
fingerprints and retry limits.
- Resume incomplete disposition repairs after a server restart.
- Keep recovery ownership separate from source issue ownership and
enforce source mutation authority.
- Project live retry evidence into issue and blocker summaries.
- Show recovery owner, return owner, attempt count, and retry state in
the board user interface.
- Treat expired or parked retries as attention states unless a queued or
running attempt exists.
- Atomically deduplicate disposition-repair wake requests with a
company-scoped partial unique index.
- Reuse the winning run when concurrent reconciliation loses the
uniqueness race, without duplicate scheduling activity.
- Honor disabled on-demand wake policy before recovery scheduling and
again before delayed retry promotion.
- Keep the new index migration safe for lagging seeded databases that
already contain the index.
- Add server and user interface tests for recovery, restart, ownership,
retry, concurrency, and blocker states.
- Update the implementation and execution semantics documents.
## Verification
- Focused server recovery and ownership suites: 282 tests passed on the
repaired base candidate.
- Focused user interface recovery suites: 128 tests passed on the
repaired base candidate.
- Atomic-deduplication schema and recovery suites: 111 tests passed on
the first Greptile repair.
- Recovery and scheduled-retry wake-policy suites: 126 tests passed at
`d8e620fe86bade7df18decac332007f5821ae04f`.
- The exact lagging-source migration-order test passed after the index
migration became idempotent: 1 test passed and 62 unrelated tests were
skipped.
- `@paperclipai/db` and `@paperclipai/server` typechecks passed at the
current head.
- Migration generation and migration safety checks passed for migration
`0226_tan_colossus.sql`.
- `pnpm check:token-gates` passed on the repaired base candidate.
- `pnpm -r typecheck` passed on the repaired base candidate.
- `pnpm build` passed on the repaired base candidate.
- `pnpm test:run` passed 4,540 tests on the repaired base candidate.
Four fixed-port cases met listeners that already existed on the host.
- The two unchanged fixed-port files passed in an isolated network
namespace: 129 tests passed and 27 tests were skipped.
- Independent Security and QA reviews approved
`63c0423aab54c66f2293a20b0fb3f3b013ee3ba8`; exact-head re-review is
required after automated checks settle on
`d8e620fe86bade7df18decac332007f5821ae04f`.
## Risks
- Recovery orchestration affects issue liveness and ownership. The new
paths use bounded attempts, stable fingerprints, row locks, authority
checks, and database uniqueness.
- A conservative attention state can show more warnings when a scheduled
retry has no queued or running attempt. It does not hide stopped work.
- Migration `0226_tan_colossus.sql` creates a partial unique index on a
known-large table. Migrations run transactionally, so `CONCURRENTLY` is
unavailable. The matching disposition-repair key namespace is introduced
by this release, so deployed databases have no matching rows before the
index is added.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
- OpenAI Codex from the GPT-5 model family used agentic reasoning, tool
use, and code execution. The runtime did not expose the exact model ID
or context window.
- Anthropic Claude Opus 5 used a 1M context window, tool use, and code
execution for part of the user interface repair, as recorded in the
commit history.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dotta