fix(tools): say when format-on-write ran out of time - #1044
fix(tools): say when format-on-write ran out of time#1044Vasanthdev2004 wants to merge 2 commits into
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The 10s bound exists so a wedged formatter cannot hang a tool call, which is right, and on expiry the unformatted write stood with nothing said. Every other fallback here is a standing fact about the environment (toggle off, no formatter for the extension, binary not installed) and is silent because nothing is wrong. A deadline firing is not that: formatting was configured, available and expected, and the file was written unformatted because the machine was slow. Left silent, the caller believes it wrote canonical style and finds out from a CI format check it cannot see, which is the failure this feature exists to prevent. The timeout is now reported on the write and edit summaries, naming the file and the formatter. The caller cancelling and the formatter exiting non-zero are deliberately not reported: the first is already surfaced as a cancelled run, and the second usually means content the formatter could not parse, which a write does not promise to fix. The bound stays 10s rather than being raised. Raising it makes a wedged formatter block longer, which is the thing the bound is for; what was missing was knowing when it fired. Closes #1022
Greptile SummaryThe PR distinguishes formatter timeouts from other best-effort formatting failures and reports them in
Confidence Score: 5/5The PR appears safe to merge, with no concrete changed-code failure identified. The structured result is consumed by every caller, preserves prior content and tracker behavior on all branches, and limits the new notice to formatter deadlines as intended.
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| Filename | Overview |
|---|---|
| internal/tools/format_on_write.go | Adds timeout classification and notice generation while preserving existing content fallback behavior. |
| internal/tools/write_file.go | Propagates formatted content and appends formatter-timeout information to write summaries. |
| internal/tools/edit_file.go | Propagates formatted content and appends formatter-timeout information to edit summaries without changing tracker baselining. |
| internal/tools/format_on_write_timeout_test.go | Adds deterministic coverage for timeout reporting and neighboring silent outcomes. |
| internal/tools/format_on_write_test.go | Updates existing fallback tests for the structured result and verifies that no notice is emitted. |
Reviews (1): Last reviewed commit: "fix(tools): say when format-on-write ran..." | Re-trigger Greptile
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Included review availability: 4 reviews are currently available. Your included PR review attempts over the past 7 days set your current allowance at 5 reviews per hour. WalkthroughFormat-on-write now returns structured results with formatted content and notices. Formatter failures and internal timeouts restore the original file content. Edit and write flows use the returned content and report relevant notices. Tests cover timeout, cancellation, failure, and restoration behavior. ChangesFormat-on-write behavior
Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes Severity of issue fixed: Medium Sequence Diagram(s)sequenceDiagram
participant EditOrWrite
participant FormatOnWrite
participant Formatter
participant File
EditOrWrite->>FormatOnWrite: format written content
FormatOnWrite->>Formatter: execute formatter
Formatter-->>FormatOnWrite: formatted content or failure
FormatOnWrite->>File: restore original bytes after failure
FormatOnWrite-->>EditOrWrite: content and notice
EditOrWrite-->>File: track returned content
Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to Formatter timeouts remain bounded, failed formatting preserves the original file content, and timeout notices explain when formatting was skipped. The change is ready to merge with normal checks. 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3 | ❌ 2❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)
✅ Passed checks (3 passed)
Full details: Linked Issues checkExplanation The changes satisfy issue
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In `@internal/tools/format_on_write.go`:
- Line 140: Update the timeout path in the formatter flow around the function
receiving absolutePath so the target file is restored to writtenContent before
returning unformatted content, and propagate any restoration failure. Ensure
write_file and edit_file cannot record or preview unformatted content while disk
retains formatter-modified bytes.
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internal/tools/edit_file.gointernal/tools/format_on_write.gointernal/tools/format_on_write_test.gointernal/tools/format_on_write_timeout_test.gointernal/tools/write_file.go
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These formatters edit in place, so one killed by the deadline, killed by the caller, or exiting partway through its own rewrite can leave the target truncated: neither the input nor the output. Returning the written bytes on top of that left the tracker baseline and the diff preview describing a file that is not on disk, so the next edit would compare against content the file does not have. That is a worse failure than the missing formatting the previous commit set out to disclose. The failure paths write the bytes back, and when even that fails the user hears about it, since it is their file. Written back unconditionally on that path rather than only when the bytes differ: comparing first means reading the file to find out, and a read that fails leaves the same ambiguity this exists to remove. The fixture is proven to damage the file on a throwaway copy, because a successful restore erases the evidence from the real one. My first attempt asserted that on the target itself, where it could only pass vacuously or report the opposite of what it saw.
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Closes #1022.
The 10s bound exists so a wedged formatter cannot hang a tool call. That is right, and it stays. What was missing is that when it fired, the unformatted write stood and nothing said so.
The issue lists three options. This takes the first, reporting the miss, and the reasoning for not taking the others is worth stating:
gofmt -w,clang-format -i,prettier --write); they produce no output, so there is no first byte to wait for and nothing to distinguish a started formatter from a wedged one that way.The distinction being drawn
Every other way this falls back is a standing fact about the environment: the toggle is off, the extension has no formatter, the binary is not installed. Those are silent on purpose, because nothing is wrong and saying so on every write would be noise.
A deadline firing is not that. Formatting was configured, available and expected, and the file was written unformatted anyway because the machine was slow. Left silent, the caller believes it wrote canonical style and finds out from a CI format check it cannot see, which is precisely what this feature exists to prevent.
So the timeout, and only the timeout, is reported on the
write_fileandedit_filesummaries, naming the file and the formatter:Two neighbouring cases stay silent, deliberately. A cancelled run is already surfaced as cancelled, and adding "the formatter was too slow" would be wrong about why. A formatter that runs and exits non-zero usually means content it could not parse, which a write does not promise to fix; reporting that as a slow machine would also be wrong about the cause.
Tests
formatOnWriteTimeoutbecomes avarso a test can shorten it. Nothing outside a test assigns to it, and the deadline path was previously unreachable in a test at any speed, which is part of why it went unnoticed that it reported nothing.Covered: a formatter cut off by the deadline is reported and named; the same formatter inside its budget says nothing; a cancelled caller says nothing; a formatter exiting non-zero says nothing; and the two pre-existing silent cases stay silent.
One note on how, because the first version was worse. I started with a formatter that really sleeps, and on Windows the batch file hosting the sleep leaves its sleeping grandchild holding the working directory, so the test passed every assertion and then failed in
TempDircleanup. Shrinking the deadline against an ordinary fast formatter reaches the same branch by the same route, deterministically and in microseconds, with nothing left running.Flipping the guard so it never fires fails the timeout case by name; widening it to fire on cancellation fails the cancellation case.
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