[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-10 by github-actions[bot] · Pull Request #20412 · github/gh-aw

github-actions · 2026-03-10T19:26:28Z

Self-Healing Documentation Fixes

This PR was automatically created by the Daily Documentation Healer workflow.

Gaps Fixed

PR Add GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION env vars to agentic engine execution steps #20382 undocumented runtime env vars — Added a new "System-Injected Runtime Variables" section to environment-variables.md documenting GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION. These three variables are automatically injected into every agentic engine execution step (both agent and detection phases) but were not present anywhere in the docs.

Root Cause

DDUw ran at 04:22 UTC on 2026-03-10 and produced PR #20306 (merged 04:47 UTC). PR #20382 (Add GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION env vars) was merged at 16:40 UTC — over 12 hours after DDUw completed. This is the same late-merge blind-spot pattern as the previous healer run (PR #20254), where a late-day merge falls entirely outside DDUw's scan window.

DDUw Improvement Suggestions

Run DDUw twice daily (e.g. 06:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC) to reduce the blind spot from ~20 hours to ~10 hours. The current single 06:00 UTC run leaves a ~20-hour window where late-merged features are only caught the following day — by which point DDUw may skip them because they no longer appear in a fresh "last 24 hours" query.
Expand the scan window to 36–48 hours on each run. A wider window with deduplication (skip already-documented features) would reliably catch features merged late in the prior day without requiring a schedule change.

Analyzed Issues (last 7 days, label: documentation, state: closed)

Issue	Title	DDUw addressed?	Action
#20370	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues - Help Flag Descriptions	Addressed by PR #20375 (CLI fix) + PR #20306 (docs)	No action
#20248	Improve actionability of failure issues	Addressed by PR #20266 + PR #20306	No action
#20241	Staged mode support needs better docs	Addressed by PR #20269 (dedicated `staged-mode.md` page)	No action
#20218	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues and Missing Flags	Addressed by PR #20272 + PR #20306	No action
#19866	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues - 2026-03-06	CLI binary help text, not `docs/`	No action
#19836	[research] Overview of docs improver agents	Research question, not a docs gap	No action
#19815	[ubuntu-image] research: update Ubuntu runner image analysis	`research/` file, not `docs/`	No action
#19727	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues - 2026-03-05	CLI binary help text	No action
#19603	[workflow-style] Normalize report formatting	Workflow instruction file, not `docs/`	No action
#19601	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues - 2026-03-04	CLI binary help text	No action
#19222	[cli-consistency] CLI Consistency Issues - 2026-03-02	CLI binary help text	No action

The gap for GITHUB_AW/GH_AW_PHASE/GH_AW_VERSION was discovered by cross-referencing commits merged after DDUw's last run, not from a closed issue.

Files Changed

docs/src/content/docs/reference/environment-variables.md — added "System-Injected Runtime Variables" section with table and code example for GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, GH_AW_VERSION

Add GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION env vars to agentic engine execution steps #20382 — Add GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION env vars to agentic engine execution steps (merged 2026-03-10T16:40Z, after DDUw's 04:22Z run)
[docs] Update documentation for features from 2026-03-10 #20306 — DDUw PR for 2026-03-10 (did not cover Add GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION env vars to agentic engine execution steps #20382 due to timing)
[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-09 #20254 — Previous doc-healer PR (same late-merge timing pattern)

Generated by Daily Documentation Healer · ◷

expires on Mar 12, 2026, 7:27 PM UTC

Generated by Daily Documentation Healer · ◷

expires on Mar 13, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

…W_PHASE, GH_AW_VERSION runtime variables Added a new "System-Injected Runtime Variables" section documenting the three env vars automatically injected by the gh-aw compiler into every agentic engine execution step (PR #20382). Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds missing documentation for system-injected runtime environment variables exposed to agentic engine execution steps, addressing a late-merge documentation gap.

Changes:

Added a new System-Injected Runtime Variables section documenting GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, and GH_AW_VERSION
Included a table of meanings plus a compiled-workflow env: example and a NOTE about override behavior

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Copilot · 2026-03-10T22:31:51Z

docs/src/content/docs/reference/environment-variables.md


+## System-Injected Runtime Variables
+
+GitHub Agentic Workflows automatically injects the following environment variables into every agentic engine execution step (both the main agent run and the threat detection run). These variables are read-only from the agent's perspective and are useful for writing workflows or agents that need to detect their execution context.


The sentence uses incorrect verb agreement: “GitHub Agentic Workflows … injects” should be “inject” (plural subject).

Suggested change

GitHub Agentic Workflows automatically injects the following environment variables into every agentic engine execution step (both the main agent run and the threat detection run). These variables are read-only from the agent's perspective and are useful for writing workflows or agents that need to detect their execution context.

GitHub Agentic Workflows automatically inject the following environment variables into every agentic engine execution step (both the main agent run and the threat detection run). These variables are read-only from the agent's perspective and are useful for writing workflows or agents that need to detect their execution context.

Copilot · 2026-03-10T22:31:51Z

docs/src/content/docs/reference/environment-variables.md

+| `GITHUB_AW` | `"true"` | Present in every gh-aw engine execution step. Agents can check for this variable to confirm they are running inside a GitHub Agentic Workflow. |
+| `GH_AW_PHASE` | `"agent"` or `"detection"` | Identifies which execution phase is active. `"agent"` for the main run; `"detection"` for the threat-detection safety check run that precedes the main run. |
+| `GH_AW_VERSION` | e.g. `"0.40.1"` | The gh-aw compiler version that generated the workflow. Useful for conditional logic that depends on a minimum feature version. |
+
+These variables appear alongside other `GH_AW_*` context variables in the compiled workflow:
+
+```yaml
+env:
+  GITHUB_AW: "true"
+  GH_AW_PHASE: agent        # or "detection"
+  GH_AW_VERSION: "0.40.1"


The documented example values don’t match the compiled workflows produced by the compiler: lock files show GITHUB_AW: true (unquoted) and GH_AW_VERSION is typically a short build/version string (e.g. 3f30e4d), not necessarily a semver like 0.40.1. Consider updating the table and YAML example to reflect the actual emitted values (or clarify that it may be a commit SHA / dev / release version depending on build).

Suggested change

| `GITHUB_AW` | `"true"` | Present in every gh-aw engine execution step. Agents can check for this variable to confirm they are running inside a GitHub Agentic Workflow. |

| `GH_AW_PHASE` | `"agent"` or `"detection"` | Identifies which execution phase is active. `"agent"` for the main run; `"detection"` for the threat-detection safety check run that precedes the main run. |

| `GH_AW_VERSION` | e.g. `"0.40.1"` | The gh-aw compiler version that generated the workflow. Useful for conditional logic that depends on a minimum feature version. |

These variables appear alongside other `GH_AW_*` context variables in the compiled workflow:

```yaml

env:

GITHUB_AW: "true"

GH_AW_PHASE: agent # or "detection"

GH_AW_VERSION: "0.40.1"

| `GITHUB_AW` | `true` | Present in every gh-aw engine execution step. Agents can check for this variable to confirm they are running inside a GitHub Agentic Workflow. |

| `GH_AW_PHASE` | `"agent"` or `"detection"` | Identifies which execution phase is active. `"agent"` for the main run; `"detection"` for the threat-detection safety check run that precedes the main run. |

| `GH_AW_VERSION` | e.g. `"3f30e4d"` | The gh-aw compiler version that generated the workflow (often a short commit SHA, `dev`, or a release version). Useful for conditional logic that depends on a minimum feature version. |

These variables appear alongside other `GH_AW_*` context variables in the compiled workflow:

```yaml

env:

GITHUB_AW: true

GH_AW_PHASE: agent # or "detection"

GH_AW_VERSION: "3f30e4d" # e.g. short commit SHA, dev, or release version

Copilot · 2026-03-10T22:31:51Z

docs/src/content/docs/reference/environment-variables.md

+```
+
+> [!NOTE]
+> These variables are injected by the compiler and cannot be overridden by user-defined `env:` blocks in the workflow frontmatter.


The NOTE claims these variables “cannot be overridden by user-defined env: blocks in the workflow frontmatter”, but the compiler currently injects these keys and then merges user-provided engine.env / agent env afterwards (e.g. maps.Copy(env, workflowData.EngineConfig.Env) in pkg/workflow/copilot_engine_execution.go), which allows overriding GITHUB_AW, GH_AW_PHASE, or GH_AW_VERSION. Either adjust the docs to reflect actual precedence, or reserve/validate these names in the compiler so the NOTE stays accurate.

Suggested change

> These variables are injected by the compiler and cannot be overridden by user-defined `env:` blocks in the workflow frontmatter.

> These variables are injected by the compiler as defaults for the engine execution context. They can be overridden by user-defined `engine.env` or agent-specific `env` blocks in the workflow frontmatter, but are not affected by workflow-, job-, or step-level `env:` scopes.

github-actions bot added automation documentation Improvements or additions to documentation labels Mar 10, 2026

pelikhan marked this pull request as ready for review March 10, 2026 22:28

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings March 10, 2026 22:28

pelikhan merged commit 726232a into main Mar 10, 2026
1 check passed

pelikhan deleted the doc-healer-2026-03-10-gh-aw-runtime-envvars-c08efa7369783cc1 branch March 10, 2026 22:28

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of pelikhan March 10, 2026 22:29 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Mar 10, 2026

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This was referenced Mar 10, 2026

feat: Move APM dependency resolution to activation job via pack/unpack #20385

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Smoke Test: Copilot - 22928940337 #20431

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github-actions bot added the ai-inspected label Mar 11, 2026

This was referenced Mar 11, 2026

[docs] Update glossary - daily scan #20493

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[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-11 #20569

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[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-12 #20716

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[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-10#20412

[docs] Self-healing documentation fixes from issue analysis - 2026-03-10#20412
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		## System-Injected Runtime Variables

		GitHub Agentic Workflows automatically injects the following environment variables into every agentic engine execution step (both the main agent run and the threat detection run). These variables are read-only from the agent's perspective and are useful for writing workflows or agents that need to detect their execution context.

	> These variables are injected by the compiler and cannot be overridden by user-defined `env:` blocks in the workflow frontmatter.
	> These variables are injected by the compiler as defaults for the engine execution context. They can be overridden by user-defined `engine.env` or agent-specific `env` blocks in the workflow frontmatter, but are not affected by workflow-, job-, or step-level `env:` scopes.

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github-actions bot commented Mar 10, 2026

Self-Healing Documentation Fixes

Gaps Fixed

Root Cause

DDUw Improvement Suggestions

Analyzed Issues (last 7 days, label: documentation, state: closed)

Files Changed

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