From 7c3999d77906f0fc23db8001d7ab366695d2f6ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: ciregenz <ciregenz@berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2026 20:58:42 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] [eric] agents: a self-healing reset-window 401 retries
 silently instead of flashing the reconnect card

---
 backend/apps/agents/core/error_classify.py | 13 +++++++++++--
 backend/tests/test_capacity_retry.py       | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/backend/apps/agents/core/error_classify.py b/backend/apps/agents/core/error_classify.py
index 2d2b382c..275a4eca 100644
--- a/backend/apps/agents/core/error_classify.py
+++ b/backend/apps/agents/core/error_classify.py
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ TRANSIENT_CAPACITY_PATTERNS = re.compile(
     r"|internal\s+server\s+error"
     r"|rate[_\s-]?limit(?:_error)?"
     r"|ECONNRESET|ETIMEDOUT|ENETUNREACH|fetch\s+failed"
+    r"|reset\s+after\s+\d"
     r"|resource[_\s-]?exhausted"
     r"|upstream\s+connect\s+error)",
     re.IGNORECASE,
@@ -154,6 +155,10 @@ def is_auth_error(exc: BaseException, extra_text: str = "") -> bool:
     # A tool-schema translation 400 can carry provider/connection wording that trips the auth regex below; it isn't auth, so don't claim it is.
     if is_translation_error(exc, extra_text):
         return False
+    # A 401 that names its own recovery window ("reset after 1m 57s") is a token mid-refresh; it
+    # heals itself, so the reconnect card would lie. The transient classifier retries it instead.
+    if re.search(r"reset\s+after|try\s+again\s+in", combined, re.IGNORECASE):
+        return False
     return bool(re.search(
         r"\b(401|403)\b"
         r"|invalid\s+authentication\s+credentials"
@@ -244,11 +249,15 @@ def p_get_transient_exc_types() -> Tuple[type, ...]:
 def is_transient_capacity_error(exc: BaseException, extra_text: str = "") -> bool:
     # The Claude CLI's underlying ProcessError stringifies to a generic "Command failed with exit code 1 / Check stderr output for details"; the real cause (rate_limit_error / No pool capacity available / 429 / overloaded) only surfaces in the subprocess's stderr stream, which we capture via the SDK's `stderr` callback and pass in as extra_text. Classify against both so we catch capacity errors regardless of which channel carried the message.
     combined = f"{exc!s}\n{extra_text}".strip()
-    if combined and NON_TRANSIENT_PATTERNS.search(combined):
-        return False
     # An overflow can arrive dressed as a 429 ("request too large"); retrying the identical oversized request is guaranteed futile, the valve owns it.
     if is_context_overflow_error(exc, extra_text):
         return False
+    # A failure that names its own recovery window ("reset after 1m 57s") heals itself, even when
+    # it's dressed as a 401; the reset hint outranks the auth-shaped non-transient veto (caught live).
+    if combined and re.search(r"reset\s+after\s+\d", combined, re.IGNORECASE):
+        return True
+    if combined and NON_TRANSIENT_PATTERNS.search(combined):
+        return False
     # Ahead of the empty-string bail on purpose: what the exception IS doesn't depend on whether it bothered to say anything.
     if isinstance(exc, p_get_transient_exc_types()):
         return True
diff --git a/backend/tests/test_capacity_retry.py b/backend/tests/test_capacity_retry.py
index 5ad29db6..1f06a7c3 100644
--- a/backend/tests/test_capacity_retry.py
+++ b/backend/tests/test_capacity_retry.py
@@ -108,3 +108,19 @@ def test_ordinary_turn_failures_are_not_router_unreachable():
         "",
     ):
         assert not is_router_unreachable_error(text), text
+
+
+# --- self-healing 401s: mid-refresh tokens must retry, never flash the reconnect card ------------
+from backend.apps.agents.core.error_classify import is_auth_error
+
+
+def test_reset_window_401_is_transient_not_auth():
+    # Verbatim live codex body (2026-08-06): healed itself two minutes later, chats were fine.
+    body = '[codex/gpt-5.2] [401]: Provided authentication token is expired. Please try signing in again. (reset after 1m 57s)'
+    assert not is_auth_error(Exception(body)), "a self-healing 401 must not show the reconnect card"
+    assert capacity_retry_wait(Exception(body), 0) == 5, "and the turn silently retries through the window"
+
+
+def test_genuine_auth_death_still_cards():
+    assert is_auth_error(Exception("401 unauthorized: invalid authentication credentials"))
+    assert capacity_retry_wait(Exception("401 unauthorized: invalid api key"), 0) is None