GitHub Agentic Workflows Files

🌟 Release Highlights

This release brings a new shellcheck-based linting phase for run steps, expanded agent job gating controls, and a large batch of security hardening and reliability fixes.

✨ What's New

• Shellcheck linting for run steps — Compiled workflow run steps are now validated with shellcheck, with a Docker-based fallback for systems lacking a native binary. Enabled by default and opt-out via flags.
• First-class agent job gating — Added jobs.agent.needs and jobs.agent.if support, giving workflow authors finer control over when the agent job executes.
• dispatch_workflow ref parameter — The ref input is now exposed in the per-workflow tool schema when allowed-refs is configured, enabling more precise cross-workflow dispatch targeting.
• Daily arXiv researcher workflow — A new built-in workflow scans recent papers for gh-aw improvement opportunities.

🐛 Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed on.needs incorrectly leaking into the compiled workflow's on: section, and activation job needs not populating from engine.env expressions.
• Fixed stale merged PR handling in update_pull_request branch refresh so it no longer fails safe-outputs processing.
• Corrected pull_request_target trigger to support the ready_for_review activity type.
• Fixed false-positive credit-ceiling and timeout detections, and rescued Copilot runs incorrectly classified as authentication_failed.
• Restored MCP telemetry observability by moving the Python venv out of the agent artifact upload path.
• Fixed comment-only frontmatter handling in shared workflow parsing.

🔒 Security

• Removed or disabled several container images with unresolved critical/high CVEs, including mcp/markitdown, mcp/notion, semgrep/semgrep, cli-proxy:0.27.42, and vulnerable gh-aw-firewall pins.
• Patched a brace-expansion vulnerability in the gh-aw-node npm overlay (GHSA-mh99-v99m-4gvg).
• Pinned node:lts-alpine, python:alpine, and Serena MCP images to remediated digests.

📚 Documentation

• Split developer/SKILL.md into task-scoped sub-skills for easier navigation.
• Added AI crawler allow-list entries to the docs site robots.txt.
• Documented the search_repositories repo: qualifier limitation and fixed several frontmatter reference inaccuracies.

🔧 Internal

• Added multiple new linters (uncheckedflushreturn, walkfuncerrshadow, wgdonenotdeferred, contextcancelnotdeferred, stringsindexhasprefix) and enforced them in CI.
• Removed dead code and refactored large functions across the CLI and workflow engine for maintainability.

Generated by 🚀 Release · auto · 22.3 AIC · ⊞ 11.1K

What's Changed

• fix(eslint): gate replaceWithGetErrorMessage suggestion on hasResolvableLocalBinding in no-err-stack-then-string-fallback by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49501
• eslint-factory: recognize JSDoc @param {typeof import('@actions/core')} as core-alias signal by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49502
• Add llms.txt to repo root for AI tool discoverability by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49560
• [docs] Update documentation for features from 2026-08-01 by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49568
• Align package READMEs with exported API surface for spec-librarian audit findings by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49585
• docs: add Applebot-Extended to robots.txt AI crawler allow rules by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49599
• Allow add-labels to opt out of pull-requests: write by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49477
• engine: forward timeout-minutes to execution step for codex, gemini, pi, antigravity by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49495
• SPDD spec sync: fixture traceability, outcome-eval crosswalk, and OTLP credential redaction norms by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49596
• Add fixture-driven formal conformance tests for intent attribution compliance by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49594
• Build(deps): Bump pdfjs-dist from 6.1.200 to 6.2.108 in /docs by @dependabot[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49550
• fix: use distinct XML marker for threat detection engine errors vs real threats by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49527
• fix: honour workflow_dispatch + aw_context in checkout_pr_branch.cjs by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49451
• feat: daily arXiv researcher — scan papers for gh-aw improvement opportunities by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49609
• [eslint-miner] eslint-miner: add require-rmsync-try-catch rule for actions/setup/js by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49564
• Build(deps): Bump astro from 7.1.4 to 7.1.5 in /docs by @dependabot[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49548
• Build(deps): Bump @astrojs/markdown-remark from 7.2.1 to 7.2.2 in /docs by @dependabot[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49549
• Build(deps): Bump alpine from 3.22 to 3.24 by @dependabot[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49547
• Remove stale github-mcp-server v1.7.0 container image pin by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49613
• Update GPT pricing catalog and default detection/evals model routing via aliases by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49586
• improve: threat detection engine error template with progressive disclosure by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49497
• Fix create_pull_request rewrite/push parity for excluded files and base drift by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49474
• fix: target current checkout subdirectory in Configure Git credentials steps by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49524
• refactor: migrate remaining RunGHWithHost call sites to RunGHContextWithHost by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49554
• fix: correct Squid access.log path and add runtime presence detection by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49557
• Drop "cancelled" from FAILURE_CONCLUSIONS in aw-failure-investigator by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49658
• feat: support sbx bounded-query runtime by @lpcox in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49247
• fix(auto-triage): add missing classification rules for unlabeled report-type issues by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49679
• fix: normalize report formatting guidance across workflow prompts by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49677
• Fix credit-ceiling handling: exit 0 when AI credits budget is enforced by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49614
• fix(safe-outputs): treat stale/resolved review threads as no-ops; allow bot review dismissal by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49648
• CLI consistency: reject legacy nested gh fallback under multi-subcommand parents by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49673
• [instructions] Sync instruction files with release v0.84.2 by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49739
• [test-parallel] test: add t.Parallel() to TestFormatListWithOr by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49724
• [docs] docs: fix British spellings in frontmatter reference by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49706
• Pin Serena MCP image to remediated SHA tag and propagate digest across workflow artifacts by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49693
• Remove vulnerable cli-proxy:0.27.42 container pin from shared action lock data by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49692
• docs: document search_repositories repo: qualifier limitation by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49691
• [docs] docs: unbloat staged mode reference by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49687
• fix: replace strings.Index == 0 with strings.HasPrefix; enforce stringsindexhasprefix linter by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49676
• Accept targeted literal .replace() escapes in require-escaped-regexp-interpolation by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49674
• [log] Add debug logging to five pkg/linters analyzers by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49707
• Normalize setup-js caught-error logging to use getErrorMessage by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49686
• [eslint-miner] eslint-factory: extend no-setfailed-then-exit-zero to catch process.exitCode = 0 by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49740
• fix: move Python venv out of agent artifact upload path to restore MCP telemetry observability by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49685
• Add walkfuncerrshadow analyzer for filepath.Walk err shadowing by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49633
• fix: escape MCP env secrets with \${VAR} for non-Copilot engines to prevent heredoc JSON corruption by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49450
• [aw] Enforce safe-output emission in daily arXiv researcher workflow by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49749
• enforce: add contextcancelnotdeferred and wgdonenotdeferred to CI linter gates by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49755
• [docs] Update documentation for features from 2026-08-02 by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49763
• Split developer/SKILL.md into task-scoped sub-skills; fix npm vulnerabilities by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49757
• fix(conformance): fix WTD-001/WTD-002 false-positives on centralized threat-detection label string by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49753
• harden fetch calls with timeouts and try/catch in actions/setup/js by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49670
• fix: populate safe_outputs in activity/summary.json even when manifest is empty by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49650
• fix: SC2038 — use find -print0 | xargs -0 in workflow scripts by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49756
• fix(security): remove vulnerable gh-aw-firewall 0.27.42 container pins (agent, api-proxy, squid) by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49766
• fix: return no-op for stale review_id 404 in dismiss_pull_request_review by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49745
• fix(prompt-clustering): add explicit safeoutputs create_discussion call by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49760
• feat: add shellcheck gate for actions/setup/sh by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49761
• fix(metrics-collector): restore metrics/latest.json updates broken since Jan 2026 by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49767
• fix(eslint-factory): extend no-caught-error-interpolation to cover EventEmitter .on('error') handlers by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49768
• fix(mount_mcp_as_cli): retry tools/list on empty response to handle backend schema-build race by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49759
• fix: update node:lts-alpine pin to remediate critical/high CVEs by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49781
• ci: enforce goroutinemissingrecover and trimleftright in lint gate by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49783
• fix(dispatch-workflow): expose ref parameter in per-workflow tool schema when allowed-refs is configured by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49754
• Restore live GitHub MCP tools in toolset mappings and align docs with redistributed search ownership by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49790
• fix(security): disable semgrep/semgrep container — Critical/High CVEs, no upstream fix available by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49694
• Address leftover golint findings in CLI init/compile flow, stringsconcatloop analyzer, and actionpins test set usage by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49752
• Fix false positive AI credits rate limit and agentic engine timeout detections by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49750
• fix(eslint): require-escaped-regexp-interpolation — const-binding resolution to eliminate false positives by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49782
• Update python:alpine container pin to remediated digest in action/workflow lock data by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49791
• fix: replace hardcoded claude-haiku-4.5 with portable small alias in grumpy-coder sub-agent by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49796
• Merge concurrent experiment state rebases in push_experiments_state by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49631
• engine/codex: compile error when restricted bash allowlist is configured by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49758
• [dead-code] chore: remove dead functions — 4 functions removed by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49801
• security: remove mcp/markitdown container (849 CVEs, no upstream fix) by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49806
• Fix evals AIC rendering in generated no-op footers by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49802
• refactor(typeutil): split map-extraction helpers into lookup.go by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49746
• Rescue completed watchdog-fired Copilot runs from false authentication_failed classification by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49792
• Add full AI crawler allow-list to docs site robots.txt by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49820
• Disable vulnerable mcp/notion container integration (Critical/High CVEs, no upstream fix) by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49805
• Add dedicated unit coverage for activation step helpers by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49800
• feat: add archivx agentic workflows analyzer with glowmotion animated diagrams by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49816
• Refactor workflow engine execution builders and log parsers to clear largefunc lint slice by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49793
• feat: shellcheck linting phase for run steps in compile pipeline by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49762
• Add formal test predicates P16–P21 for otel-observability-spec by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49809
• Refactor interactive/audit CLI large functions into focused helpers by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49799
• Require explicit repo for wildcard push_to_pull_request_branch targets in multi-repo workflows by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49813
• Add first-class agent job gating via jobs.agent.needs and jobs.agent.if by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49814
• [WIP] Fix failing GitHub Actions job for unit tests by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49844
• Fix read-tool workspace permission scoping regression (daily workflows killed by denial threshold) by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49840
• Fix SC2015 shellcheck errors in generated "Collect usage artifact files" step by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49845
• Fix gh-aw-node brace-expansion patch: replace broken npm --prefix overlay with temp-dir copy (GHSA-mh99-v99m-4gvg) by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49853
• feat: shellcheck Docker fallback for systems without native binary; re-enable in MCP by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49826
• fix: support ready_for_review activity type in pull_request_target trigger by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49865
• Fix on.needs being emitted into compiled workflow on: section by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49864
• Fix Codex fetch integration tests and restore timeout-minutes propagation fallback by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49858
• Extract inline output templates from daily-cache-strategy-analyzer into shared file by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49861
• Fix activation job needs not populated from engine.env needs expressions by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49863
• Add skill invocation visibility for APM-restored skills by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49866
• fix: prevent spurious merge conflicts when source field position differs from canonical end-of-frontmatter by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49859
• feat(linters): add uncheckedflushreturn analyzer + fix existing violations by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49862
• [docs] docs: unbloat dependabot rollout example by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49874
• Handle comment-only frontmatter in shared workflow parsing by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49875
• Handle stale merged PRs in update_pull_request branch refresh without failing safe-outputs processing by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49881
• feat: shellcheck disabled by default, opt-in via --shellcheck/--validate, parallel execution by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49880
• [community] Update community contributions in README by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49884
• [blog] Weekly blog post – 2026-08-03 by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49890
• [aw] Raise Semantic Function Refactoring turn budget to prevent invocation-cap failures by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49886
• [compiler-threat-spec] spec: add CTR-022 (git argument injection) and CTR-023 (bash allowlist illusion) by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49895
• docs: fix dispatch_workflow default max (3 → 1) in safe-outputs-specification.md by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49892
• [log] Add debug logging to under-instrumented pkg/ files by @github-actions[bot] in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49896
• docs: multi-scenario evaluation example and failure classification for agentic workflow agent by @pelikhan with @Copilot in https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/49891

Full Changelog: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/compare/v0.84.2...v0.84.3