coleam00/Archon · error

Failed to find child workflow runs: ${err.message}

Error message

Failed to find child workflow runs: ${err.message}

What it means

findChildRuns selects all workflow runs whose parent_run_id equals the given parent run id, oldest first. Driver/query errors are logged (db.workflow_run_find_children_failed) and rethrown wrapped in this message. An empty child list is a normal result, not an error.

Source

Thrown at packages/core/src/db/workflows.ts:756

}

/**
 * Find every run spawned as a child of `parentRunId` (#2121 Phase 2), oldest
 * first. Callers filter further by `metadata.parent_node_id` (a parent may have
 * several `workflow:` nodes) or by status (the abandon cascade cancels
 * non-terminal children).
 */
export async function findChildRuns(parentRunId: string): Promise<WorkflowRun[]> {
  try {
    const result = await pool.query<WorkflowRun>(
      'SELECT * FROM remote_agent_workflow_runs WHERE parent_run_id = $1 ORDER BY started_at ASC',
      [parentRunId]
    );
    return result.rows.map(row => normalizeWorkflowRun(row));
  } catch (error) {
    const err = error as Error;
    getLog().error({ err, parentRunId }, 'db.workflow_run_find_children_failed');
    throw new Error(`Failed to find child workflow runs: ${err.message}`);
  }
}

/**
 * Safety cap on the `parent_run_id` walk. The load-time and runtime cycle guards
 * prevent creating a cyclic run tree, but a hand-edited DB must never hang the
 * walk — deeper than the runtime depth cap (5) so a legitimately deep-but-bounded
 * tree still resolves fully.
 */
const MAX_RUN_ANCESTRY_DEPTH = 32;

/**
 * Walk `parent_run_id` from `runId` up to the root, returning ancestors nearest
 * first (the immediate parent at index 0). Depth-capped and cycle-safe (a
 * repeated id stops the walk). Used by the runtime cycle guard and to build the
 * path-lock exclusion set for a shared-checkout sub-run.
 */
export async function getRunAncestry(runId: string): Promise<WorkflowRun[]> {

View on GitHub (pinned to 0773b97458)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped err.message; 'column parent_run_id does not exist' means migrations are pending.
2. Run the schema upgrade so parent_run_id exists, then retry.
3. For transient connection errors, retry after the pool recovers — the query is read-only.

Example fix

// before
const children = await findChildRuns(parentRunId);
// after
let children: WorkflowRun[] = [];
try {
  children = await findChildRuns(parentRunId);
} catch (err) {
  getLog().error({ err, parentRunId }, 'children_walk_failed');
}

// Verify the parent_run_id column exists (added in #2121 Phase 2)
const check = await pool.query(
  `SELECT 1 FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='workflow_runs' AND column_name='parent_run_id'`
);
if (check.rowCount === 0) throw new Error('schema upgrade required: parent_run_id missing');

function isChildWalkError(err: unknown): err is Error {
  return err instanceof Error && err.message.startsWith('Failed to find child workflow runs:');
}

try {
  const children = await findChildRuns(parentRunId);
} catch (err) {
  if (/does not exist/.test(String(err))) throw new Error('apply schema upgrades first', { cause: err });
  children = []; // only for acceptable degraded walks
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling findChildRuns(parentRunId) during a DB outage, against a schema missing the parent_run_id column (pre-#2121 Phase 2 database), or when the driver throws a timeout/connection error on the SELECT.

Common situations: Older binary reading a database before parent_run_id was added, or vice versa (older DB opened by newer binary before upgrade steps); DB restart mid-walk; connection limit exceeded.

Understand the failure class

Background: Database query failed: Internal Server Error 500s wrapping SQL, Prisma, and connection failures — what to check first — this error's family across 16 libraries.

Related errors

• Corrupt commands JSON for codebase ${id}: unable to parse st
• Codebase ${codebaseId} not found
• Conversation not found: ${conversationId}
• Failed to get workflow run status: ${err.message}
• Failed to get active workflow run: ${err.message}

AI-assisted analysis of coleam00/Archon@0773b97458 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b0387343a6daf384. Report an issue: GitHub.