fix(engine) truncate errors before storing them on a run and waitpoint output

[ericallam]

Truncate run error message and stacktrace to 16kb

[changeset-bot]

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Latest commit: 9d52cdf

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[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

• Added a private helper method #truncateTaskRunError to sanitize BUILT_IN_ERROR TaskRunError objects by truncating name, message, and stackTrace to fixed lengths.
• Introduced a general truncateString utility to cap strings at specified lengths, used by #truncateTaskRunError.
• Integrated truncation into permanent failure handling: task run updates now store truncatedError in the error field.
• Updated waitpoint reporting to send JSON.stringify(truncatedError) for BUILT_IN_ERROR outputs.
• Ensured finalization and error reporting paths consistently use truncated error data for BUILT_IN_ERROR to limit payload size.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Description Check	⚠️ Warning	The pull request description is missing entirely and does not include any sections from the required template such as the issue reference, checklist, testing steps, changelog, or screenshots.	Please fill out the description using the repository’s template by specifying the issue closed, completing the checklist, describing your testing steps, summarizing the changes in the changelog, and adding any relevant screenshots.
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	You can run @coderabbitai generate docstrings to improve docstring coverage.

✅ Passed checks (1 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title Check	✅ Passed	The title succinctly and accurately describes the core change by noting that engine errors are truncated before being stored in both run records and waitpoint output, reflecting the main modifications in the changeset.

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate Docstrings

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• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch ea-branch-91

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Actionable comments posted: 0

🧹 Nitpick comments (2)

internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts (2)

1920-1926: Improve truncation UX and edge-case handling.

Append an ellipsis when truncated and guard zero/negative lengths.

Apply this diff:

-function truncateString(str: string | undefined, maxLength: number): string {
-  if (!str) {
-    return "";
-  }
-
-  return str.slice(0, maxLength);
-}
+function truncateString(str: string | undefined, maxLength: number): string {
+  if (!str) return "";
+  if (maxLength <= 0) return "";
+  if (str.length <= maxLength) return str;
+  const limit = Math.max(1, maxLength);
+  return str.slice(0, limit - 1) + "…";
+}

---

1549-1552: Add error output type and emit truncatedError in runFailed event

internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts
@@ 1549,1552
-      await this.waitpointSystem.completeWaitpoint({
-        id: run.associatedWaitpoint.id,
-        output: { value: JSON.stringify(truncatedError), isError: true },
-      });
+      await this.waitpointSystem.completeWaitpoint({
+        id: run.associatedWaitpoint.id,
+        output: { value: JSON.stringify(truncatedError), type: "application/json", isError: true },
+      });

@@ 1554,1559
-      this.$.eventBus.emit("runFailed", {
-        time: failedAt,
-        run: {
-          id: runId,
-          status: run.status,
-          spanId: run.spanId,
-          error,
+      this.$.eventBus.emit("runFailed", {
+        time: failedAt,
+        run: {
+          id: runId,
+          status: run.status,
+          spanId: run.spanId,
+          error: truncatedError,

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 59df4af and 9d52cdf.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts (5 hunks)

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📓 Path-based instructions (1)

**/*.{ts,tsx}

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**/*.{ts,tsx}: Always prefer using isomorphic code like fetch, ReadableStream, etc. instead of Node.js specific code
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Files:

• internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts

🧠 Learnings (1)

📚 Learning: 2025-08-14T12:13:20.455Z

Learnt from: myftija
PR: triggerdotdev/trigger.dev#2392
File: packages/cli-v3/src/utilities/gitMeta.ts:195-218
Timestamp: 2025-08-14T12:13:20.455Z
Learning: In the GitMeta schema (packages/core/src/v3/schemas/common.ts), all fields are intentionally optional to handle partial data from various deployment contexts (local, GitHub Actions, GitHub App). Functions like getGitHubAppMeta() are designed to work with missing environment variables rather than validate their presence.

Applied to files:

• internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts

🧬 Code graph analysis (1)

internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts (1)

packages/core/src/v3/schemas/common.ts (2)

• TaskRunError (200-205)
• TaskRunError (207-207)

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🔇 Additional comments (2)

internal-packages/run-engine/src/engine/systems/runAttemptSystem.ts (2)

1479-1490: Good call: truncate before persisting the error.

This prevents oversized payloads in the taskRun.error column.

---

1898-1909: Implement truncation for STRING_ERROR.raw and replace magic numbers with named constants. zod schemas for TaskRunBuiltInError (name, message, stackTrace) and TaskRunStringError (raw) require string fields, and the proposed diff using ERROR_NAME_MAX and ERROR_TEXT_MAX satisfies them.