gitmost/docs/reading-ai-logs.md

Reading the AI dialog logs (how agents call tools, and where they fail)

How to inspect the agent conversation history in the database — and, more importantly, the one non-obvious trap that will make you report the wrong answer: the persisted history silently hides hard tool failures. Written from real pain (a "which tools fail most?" analysis that confidently answered "patchNode: 0 errors" while the UI was visibly full of red patchNode failures).

Read the Gotchas section before you trust any error count.

TL;DR

• Agent chats live in Postgres, DB docmost, tables ai_chat_*.
• Each tool invocation is stored as two array elements (a tool-call part and a tool-result part), so naive counting double-counts.
• A tool that throws writes no result part. Since the #407 fix its error is persisted as a dedicated {toolName, error} element in tool_calls (queryable + replayed to the model). Rows written before #407 still drop it — the error is nowhere in the DB and shows only in the live UI. So isError / success=false scans under-report by design, and pre-#407 thrown errors are invisible.
• To find where agents fail: (1) soft-failure markers in tool_calls, (2) the new error field for thrown errors (new rows) / the orphan-gap proxy (old rows), (3) server logs / the live UI for full stack traces beyond the truncated message.

Where the data lives

Host island.lc (10.31.40.120), container gitmost-postgresql (pgvector/pgvector:pg18), database docmost.

ssh island.lc
# one-off query:
docker exec gitmost-postgresql psql -U docmost -d docmost -P pager=off -c "SELECT ..."
# interactive:
docker exec -it gitmost-postgresql psql -U docmost -d docmost

The main app container is gitmost (DATABASE_URL=postgresql://docmost:...@db:5432/docmost). All workspaces (vvzvlad / wb / asakusa / …) share this single database — they are rows in workspaces, not separate deployments.

Relevant tables

Table	What it holds
ai_chats	one row per conversation (title, role_id, page_id, creator_id)
ai_chat_messages	every message; tool calls live in tool_calls jsonb
ai_chat_runs	one row per agent run (turn): status, error, step_count
ai_agent_roles	agent definitions (instructions, model_config)
ai_mcp_servers	configured MCP tool servers per workspace

ai_chat_messages columns that matter: role (user | assistant — there is no separate tool role), content (text), tool_calls (jsonb array), metadata (jsonb, holds run error + rendered parts), status, tsv (full-text index).

How tool calls are stored — READ THIS

Tool calls are not one-object-per-call. Each logical invocation is split into two consecutive elements of the tool_calls array:

index 0: { "toolName": "getPage",  "input":  { "pageId": "…" } }   ← tool-call   (has input, NO output)
index 1: { "toolName": "getPage",  "output": { … } }                ← tool-result (has output, NO input)

The keys that appear on an element are toolName, input, output, and — for a thrown failure on rows written after the #407 fix — error (the tool's error message; see the "Hard failures" section below). There is no state, no errorText, no type. On pre-#407 rows a thrown failure has NO paired result element at all (silent orphan). Consequences:

1. Real invocation count = elements that have output or error. Counting every element double-counts (you get ~2× and a spurious "~50% of every tool has no output").
2. Pairing: a call = a tool-call part followed by its result part. A success carries output; a thrown failure (post-#407) carries error instead. Both carry toolName, so you can group by tool on either.

The two classes of failure (and which the DB can see)

1. Soft failures — tool RAN and returned an error-shaped result → PERSISTED ✅

These are visible in the tool-result output. The marker differs per tool:

Tool(s)	Error marker in output
editPageText	failed is a non-empty array of {find, reason} (e.g. text not found in the document, matches N times — provide a longer fragment or set replaceAll). Also a soft warning when the find string contained markdown that only matched after stripping.
semanticSearch	{ "unavailable": true, "reason": "semantic search unavailable" } (feature/infra, not the agent's fault)
MCP passthrough (Habr_*, some Search_*)	output is an array (raw MCP content) whose text starts with Error executing tool … validation error …
generic	output.isError = true or output.success = false

Note editPageText returns failed: [] on success — filtering on the presence of the key gives false positives; filter on non-empty.

2. Hard failures — tool THREW → NOW PERSISTED ✅ (since the #407 fix)

When a tool throws (the classic one is patchNode / insertNode / tableUpdateCell → Failed to encode document to Yjs (fromJSON): Unknown node type: undefined), the runtime still writes no tool-result part — the failure is an ai@6 tool-error content part instead. Since the #407 fix, that error is persisted: serializeSteps appends a dedicated element {toolName, error: "<message>"} right after the failed call, mirroring how a successful {toolName, output} element is appended. So a thrown error now leaves a queryable error field carrying its (truncated) reason, and the same real text is replayed to the model on the next turn (an output-error part with the real errorText, no longer the 'Tool call did not complete.' placeholder).

Cutover caveat — old rows keep the old blind shape. Rows written before this change have the two-part shape (call + output only) and simply drop thrown errors, leaving a silent orphan (a call with no output and no error). Rows written after the fix additionally carry the error element. So:

• New rows: query the error field directly (see the hard-error query below) — no orphan heuristic needed for thrown failures.
• Old rows (pre-#407): the only DB-side proxy is still an orphan: a tool-call part with no matching tool-result and no error. Orphans also appear when a run is aborted mid-flight (server restart), so a high-volume tool (createComment, searchInPage, Search_web_search) shows orphans from aborts, not real errors on old rows. Treat the orphan gap as an upper bound, and cross-check the tool: a gap on a structural editor (patchNode, insertNode, updatePageJson, transformPage) is almost certainly a thrown Yjs-encode error; a gap on createComment is mostly aborts.

A note on the aborted-call fallback: a call with neither a result nor a tool-error (genuinely interrupted mid-step) still replays with the 'Tool call did not complete.' placeholder and persists as an orphan — that path is unchanged, and is distinct from a real thrown error, which now carries error.

3. Run-level failures → ai_chat_runs

status ∈ succeeded | aborted | failed | running; error holds the text. Seen in the wild: Run interrupted by a server restart. (aborts) and Failed after N attempts. Last error: The service may be temporarily overloaded (LLM provider 529). These are infra/provider, not agent tool misuse.

Ready-to-use queries

Run all of these via docker exec gitmost-postgresql psql -U docmost -d docmost -P pager=off -c "…".

Real invocation count per tool (result parts only — the correct denominator):

SELECT elem->>'toolName' AS tool, count(*) AS calls
FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
WHERE jsonb_typeof(m.tool_calls) = 'array' AND elem ? 'output'
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC;

Soft errors per tool (everything the DB can honestly see):

WITH res AS (
  SELECT elem->>'toolName' AS tool, elem->'output' AS o
  FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
  WHERE jsonb_typeof(m.tool_calls) = 'array' AND elem ? 'output'
)
SELECT tool, count(*) AS calls,
       sum(COALESCE(
         (o->>'isError') = 'true'
         OR (o->>'success') = 'false'
         OR (jsonb_typeof(o->'failed') = 'array' AND o->'failed' <> '[]'::jsonb)
         OR (o->>'unavailable') = 'true'
         OR o::text ~* 'error executing tool|validation error'
       , false)::int) AS soft_errors
FROM res GROUP BY tool HAVING sum(COALESCE(
         (o->>'isError') = 'true' OR (o->>'success') = 'false'
         OR (jsonb_typeof(o->'failed') = 'array' AND o->'failed' <> '[]'::jsonb)
         OR (o->>'unavailable') = 'true' OR o::text ~* 'error executing tool|validation error'
       , false)::int) > 0
ORDER BY soft_errors DESC;

editPageText failure reasons (the most common real agent mistake — bad find):

WITH res AS (
  SELECT elem->'output' AS o
  FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
  WHERE jsonb_typeof(m.tool_calls) = 'array'
    AND elem->>'toolName' = 'editPageText' AND elem ? 'output'
)
SELECT f->>'reason' AS reason, count(*)
FROM res, jsonb_array_elements(o->'failed') f
WHERE jsonb_typeof(o->'failed') = 'array'
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC;

Hard errors — persisted error field per tool (NEW rows, since #407) — thrown tool failures now carry their real reason, so query them directly:

SELECT elem->>'toolName' AS tool, count(*) AS thrown_errors,
       min(elem->>'error') AS sample_error
FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
WHERE jsonb_typeof(m.tool_calls) = 'array' AND elem ? 'error'
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC;

Hard-error proxy for OLD rows (pre-#407) — orphan gap per tool, WITH a spread column (call parts minus result parts, plus how many distinct chats the gap is spread across). This covers rows written before thrown errors were persisted; on new rows a thrown failure now has its own error element (use the query above) and an orphan means only a genuinely aborted mid-step call:

WITH parts AS (
  SELECT m.chat_id, elem->>'toolName' AS tool,
         (elem ? 'input' AND NOT (elem ? 'output')) AS is_call,
         (elem ? 'output' OR elem ? 'error')        AS is_result
  FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
  WHERE jsonb_typeof(m.tool_calls) = 'array' AND m.role = 'assistant'
),
per_chat AS (
  SELECT tool, chat_id, sum(is_call::int) - sum(is_result::int) AS gap
  FROM parts GROUP BY tool, chat_id
)
SELECT tool,
       sum(gap) FILTER (WHERE gap > 0)   AS missing_results,
       count(*) FILTER (WHERE gap > 0)   AS chats_spread,   -- disambiguates!
       max(gap)                          AS worst_single_chat
FROM per_chat GROUP BY tool
HAVING sum(gap) FILTER (WHERE gap > 0) > 0
ORDER BY missing_results DESC;

The is_result predicate counts an error element as a paired result too, so on new rows a persisted thrown error no longer inflates the orphan gap; a remaining gap is an aborted/interrupted call.

On OLD rows, missing_results mixes thrown errors AND aborted/interrupted runs — you cannot split them from output alone (a positional "what follows the orphan" heuristic breaks on parallel tool batches, which persist as call,call,…,result,result). Use chats_spread to disambiguate:

• spread across many chats (e.g. createComment 96 over 29 chats) → a systemic real error (here: inline-comment anchor text not found on the page).
• concentrated in one chat (e.g. searchInPage 55, of which 51 in a single chat) → one runaway/aborted session, not a real per-call error — discount it.
• a gap on a structural editor (patchNode, insertNode, tableUpdateCell, updatePageJson, transformPage) is almost always a thrown Yjs-encode error.

Run-level failures:

SELECT status, count(*), min(error) AS sample_error
FROM ai_chat_runs GROUP BY status ORDER BY 2 DESC;

Full-text search across messages. The tsv GIN index is built as to_tsvector('english', unaccent(content)) — so it stems English but not Russian (Russian lexemes are stored unstemmed, so only exact word forms match). Most content here is Russian, so prefer ILIKE for substring search:

-- Russian / substring — reliable:
SELECT chat_id, left(content, 120)
FROM ai_chat_messages WHERE content ILIKE '%иранск%' LIMIT 20;

-- English phrase — can use the index:
SELECT chat_id, left(content, 120)
FROM ai_chat_messages
WHERE tsv @@ websearch_to_tsquery('english', 'some phrase') LIMIT 20;

Don't blow up your context

A single tool_calls row can be 300–400 KB (results embed full page content and search payloads). Never SELECT tool_calls (or jsonb_pretty(tool_calls)) raw. Always project just the keys you need and truncate:

SELECT elem->>'toolName',
       left(regexp_replace((elem->'output')::text, '\s+', ' ', 'g'), 200)
FROM ai_chat_messages m, jsonb_array_elements(m.tool_calls) elem
WHERE elem ? 'output' LIMIT 5;

Server logs & live UI (for the error text the DB drops)

docker logs -f --tail=100 gitmost            # main app
docker compose -p gitmost logs -f --tail=100 # whole stack

Logging is json-file, max-size=10m max-file=5 → ~50 MB retained, then rotated, and wiped on container recreate. Since the #407 fix, thrown-tool error text is persisted in the error field of tool_calls (see the hard-error query above), so you no longer depend on live logs for it. Logs/live UI remain useful for pre-#407 rows (whose thrown errors were dropped) and for full stack traces beyond the truncated stored message. A per-tool tool_calls_total{tool,status} metric to VictoriaMetrics is still a possible future add for aggregate dashboards.

Gotchas checklist

• Counting every tool_calls element → overcount. Count output elements; add error elements for thrown failures (new rows), but don't count both as invocations.
• isError / success=false ≈ 0 does not mean "no errors" — thrown errors are a separate error element (new rows) or dropped entirely (pre-#407 rows).
• Thrown errors persist only on rows written after the #407 fix — pre-#407 rows still drop them (orphan only). Mind the cutover when trending over time.
• editPageText.failed is [] on success — test for non-empty, not presence.
• Orphan gap on OLD rows mixes thrown errors and aborted runs — split by tool. On NEW rows a thrown error is its own error element, so a gap ≈ aborted call.
• aborted runs = server restarts, failed runs = provider overload — not agent mistakes.
• Never dump a raw tool_calls cell — it can be hundreds of KB.
• Logs are ephemeral (≤50 MB, wiped on recreate) — grab hard-error text live.

Snapshot (2026-07-07, illustrative — rerun the queries for current numbers)

• 226 chats, 732 messages, 46 runs; ~4 400 real tool invocations.
• Soft errors (persisted): editPageText 4/79 (bad/non-unique find) + 9 markdown-in-find warnings; semanticSearch 3/4 (unavailable); Habr_update_draft_from_docmost 1/2 (doc sent as object, not string).
• Missing-result proxy, read WITH the spread column:
  • Systemic (spread) → real errors: createComment 96 over 29 chats (comment anchor text not found — the biggest real error hotspot); editPageText 31 over 12 chats (+ the 4 soft above); structural-editor Yjs throws insertNode 10 / updatePageContent 9 / tableUpdateCell 6 / patchNode 5 / updatePageJson 2 / transformPage 2.
  • Concentrated → NOT real errors: searchInPage 55 (51 in one chat); Search_web_search 15 & Search_searxng_web_search 6 (timeouts/aborts in long research sessions).
• Runs: 34 succeeded, 10 aborted (server restart), 1 failed (provider overload).