Bug: potential-to-issue-drops-unmatched-sections

[drmoisan]

• Work Mode: full-bug

Summary

mcp__drm-copilot__potential_to_issue silently drops source sections whose headings the bug-issue template has no matching slot for, even when those headings are the scaffold's own canonical headings. When it created issue #882, it dropped three sections - ## Suspected Cause / Notes, ## Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas, and ## Next Step - from the promoted potential entry. A placeholder count of zero (not provided in potential file) markers in the resulting issue proves only that no template section went unfilled; it is not evidence that no source section was lost.

Environment

• OS/version: Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26200
• Python version: not applicable; this is the drm-copilot MCP potential_to_issue promotion tool
• Command/flags used: mcp__drm-copilot__potential_to_issue invoked with potential_path = docs/features/potential/2026-09-13-quickfiler-transactiongate-permit-leak-unexcluded.md, promotion_type=bug, work_mode=full-bug
• Data source or fixture: promoted source at docs/features/potential/promoted/2026-09-13-quickfiler-transactiongate-permit-leak-unexcluded.md versus the created issue Bug: quickfiler-transactiongate-permit-leak-unexcluded #882 body (gh issue view 882 --json body)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Author a potential-bug entry using the standard scaffold from new_potential_bug_entry, filling every one of its ten canonical headings (## Summary, ## Environment, ## Steps to Reproduce, ## Expected Behavior, ## Actual Behavior, ## Logs / Screenshots, ## Impact / Severity, ## Suspected Cause / Notes, ## Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas, ## Next Step) with real content.
2. Promote it with potential_to_issue.
3. Fetch the created issue body (gh issue view <N> --json body -q .body).
4. Diff the issue body against the promoted source file.
5. Observe that ## Suspected Cause / Notes, ## Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas, and ## Next Step are entirely absent from the issue body - not present as empty sections, not present as (not provided in potential file) placeholders, simply not in the output at all. The issue body ends after ## Impact / Severity followed by a ## Source line pointing back at the potential file.

Expected Behavior

Every canonical heading present and filled in the source potential-bug entry should either (a) survive into the created issue body with its content intact, or (b) if the tool's bug-issue template genuinely has no matching section, the tool should fail loudly or clearly flag the omission (e.g. an explicit "N sections dropped: ..." line in its return payload) rather than silently omitting the content with no signal in either the returned receipt or a placeholder marker.

Actual Behavior

For issue #882, three sections were silently dropped with no signal: ## Suspected Cause / Notes (containing a verbatim quotation of spec correction C2 from issue 743's spec and an explanation of its significance), ## Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas (containing concrete verification-scenario guidance and an explicit "trap to avoid" - a statement that a clean run is not evidence of absence, load-bearing for the issue's argument), and ## Next Step. The tool's return payload reported a normal success and a destination_path; nothing in the receipt indicated any content had been dropped. A placeholder count of zero (not provided in potential file) occurrences in the issue body is not evidence of fidelity - it proves only that the template's own sections were all filled, and says nothing about source sections the template has no slot for.

Logs / Screenshots

• Attached minimal logs or screenshot
• Snippet: promoted source docs/features/potential/promoted/2026-09-13-quickfiler-transactiongate-permit-leak-unexcluded.md lines 58-82 contain ## Suspected Cause / Notes, ## Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas, and ## Next Step with full content (verified by direct read on 2026-09-13). Issue Bug: quickfiler-transactiongate-permit-leak-unexcluded #882's body (gh issue view 882 --json body -q .body, read 2026-09-13) ends at ## Impact / Severity followed immediately by a ## Source line; none of the three sections appear anywhere in the body.

Impact / Severity

• High
• Blocker
• Medium
• Low

High: load-bearing content - including a verbatim quotation supporting the issue's central claim and an explicit trap warning meant to prevent a future reader from repeating a documented error - is lost silently on promotion, with no signal to the filer that anything was dropped. An existing agent-memory note (.claude/agent-memory/orchestrator/potential-to-issue-keeps-only-summary-section.md) claims these same three headings "landed in the issue body with full content" for a different promotion (issue #644, verified 2026-08-27); that claim does not hold for issue #882's promotion under the same bug template and is therefore stale and should be corrected.

Source

From: docs/features/potential/2026-09-13-potential-to-issue-drops-unmatched-sections.md

[drmoisan]

The following sections were present and filled in the promoted potential-bug entry (docs/features/potential/promoted/2026-09-13-potential-to-issue-drops-unmatched-sections.md) but were dropped by potential_to_issue when this issue was created. This is a live re-demonstration of the defect this very issue reports: filing this issue itself dropped the same three sections.

Suspected Cause / Notes

The promotion tool maps source sections onto the target GitHub issue template by heading-name match; a heading with no corresponding template slot is dropped rather than folded into a catch-all section or flagged. The bug-report template apparently does not always carry slots for Suspected Cause / Notes, Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas, and Next Step even though the potential-bug scaffold itself presents them as canonical, automation-mapped headings (the scaffold's own automation note reads: "Keep the section headings below unchanged; the promotion tooling maps each of them into the GitHub bug issue template" - implying they should all map, which for this issue's own promotion they again did not).

Proposed Fix / Validation Ideas

• Unit coverage areas: add either (a) a catch-all "Additional Notes" section in the bug-issue template that folds in any unmatched scaffold heading verbatim, or (b) an explicit fail-loud/warn-loud path when the tool detects a source heading it has no template slot for, surfaced in the tool's return payload (not just silently proceeding to a normal-looking success).
• Integration scenario to retest: re-promote a fully-filled scaffold (all ten headings) and assert byte-for-byte that every heading's content appears somewhere in the resulting issue body, not merely that the placeholder count is zero.
• Manual verification notes: until the tool is fixed, every promotion must be followed by a manual diff of the promoted source against the created issue body, and any dropped section must be reposted as a comment on the issue (durable, no repository write required).

Next Step

• Promote to GitHub issue (bug-report template)
• Move to active fix folder / branch

Cross-reference: this defect was discovered while filing this very batch of four issues (#884-#887) and reproduced live during that filing - all four issues in the batch had these same three sections dropped on promotion, confirmed by diffing each issue body against its promoted source immediately after creation.