While using the new 3-retry gemini path for live VPN research, two bugs surfaced:
- emit_or_fail checked auth_failed INSIDE the retry loop; a benign mid-run token-refresh line
matched the over-broad auth regex (bare login|credential|authenticat|oauth|401) and aborted the
retries with a false "auth error" - even though `gemini -p` auth tested fine. Moved auth-classify
to AFTER the retries (it only picks the final error message now) and tightened auth_failed to real
signatures (invalid_grant, not authenticated, login with google, token expired, ...).
- Added quota_exhausted() + a QUOTA FALLBACK: the pinned strong model (gemini-3.1-pro-preview) hit
"exhausted your capacity on this model" mid-session; emit_or_fail now retries once on the default
(lighter) model by stripping -m (separate quota). Validated: capped pro run -> fell back -> 2.9KB answer.
CT_THOUGHTS Thought 2 Resolution updated with both. (Search-bot reliability hardening continues.)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Mike's must-fix. Diagnosed from RAW output of failing queries (not guessed):
- grok xsearch = TIMEOUT: grok-4.20-multi-agent web_search runs past budget on multi-part queries
(286s/280s, rc=124, still searching - 183 thoughts, only progress-noise text); buffered json => total loss.
- gemini search = INTERMITTENT empty turn (a clean re-run gave a real 2.6KB answer in 122s); the wrapper
retried only once, so two empties in a row failed spuriously.
Fixes:
- ask-gemini.sh emit_or_fail: retry up to 3x with 3s/6s backoff (was 1).
- ask-grok.sh xsearch: --output-format streaming-json (salvage partials) + AUTO-FALLBACK to
ask-gemini.sh search when grok doesn't finish (rc!=0 or empty). Validated e2e: grok timed out
(rc=124) -> fell back -> gemini returned a real sourced answer (UniFi Teleport invite-link API).
grok's own multi-agent timeout is an xAI-side limitation; the fallback makes xsearch reliable regardless.
Docs: grok SKILL.md xsearch row + CT_THOUGHTS Thought 2 Resolution.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Mike's correction: web search (grok xsearch + gemini search) carries at least as much weight as
live API probing - the searches gave the real leads this session (connector proxy, teleport setting
path); blind endpoint-probing is "highly suspect" (mostly 404s). And the search bots MUST be properly
fixed - both returned empty repeatedly on UniFi research despite the same-day partial grok fix.
- docs/CT_THOUGHTS.md: Thought 2 (HIGH PRIORITY) - web-search reliability must-fix, with the observed
failures + a proper-fix investigation plan (capture failing-query JSON; max-turns/streaming-json/
retry; cross-fallback grok<->gemini; 5/5 acceptance).
- memory feedback_web_search_over_probing: lead with web search/docs; probe only to CONFIRM a
hypothesis, never as primary discovery. Reading our own config is fine; guessing paths is not.
- errorlog correction logged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
