fix(tools): clarify kanban_complete phantom-card retry guidance (salvage #23072)

[teknium1]

Summary

Workers no longer abandon a kanban task when kanban_complete rejects a hallucinated created_cards claim. The HallucinatedCardsError tool_error message now explicitly states that the task is still in-flight and tells the worker how to retry — either with a corrected created_cards list or with created_cards=[] to skip the card-claim check entirely.

Root cause

The kanban kernel's hallucinated-card gate already left the task runnable on phantom rejection (no state change, the worker can call kanban_complete again). But the previous tool_error message read like a terminal failure, so workers were observed abandoning the run, tripping the consecutive_failures breaker, and ending up auto-blocked. Pure messaging issue — kernel behavior was correct, the recovery path just wasn't legible to the model.

Changes

• tools/kanban_tools.py: rewrote HallucinatedCardsError's tool_error to lead with "Your task is still in-flight (no state change). Retry kanban_complete with ... created_cards=[] to skip the card-claim check entirely." Workers can now self-correct without the operator having to intervene.
• tests/tools/test_kanban_tools.py: 3 new tests — pin the literal phrasing the worker depends on to discover the retry path, plus successful retry via created_cards=[] and via a corrected list.
• tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_core_functionality.py: 1 new kernel-level test (test_complete_can_retry_after_phantom_rejection) exercising both retry shapes and asserting the audit + final completed event land.

No kernel behavior change — just messaging plus regression tests that lock the recovery cues so a future reword can't silently break worker self-recovery.

Validation

	Before	After
tests/tools/test_kanban_tools.py + test_kanban_core_functionality.py (phantom subset)	0/0	4/4
tests/tools/test_kanban_tools.py + test_kanban_core_functionality.py + test_kanban_db.py	290/290	294/294

Closes #22923 via salvage. Salvage of #23072. Original commit by @konsisumer cherry-picked with authorship preserved (re-attributed during salvage from der@konsi.org to the GitHub-noreply form for release-notes credit). AUTHOR_MAP entry already exists from yesterday's #23071 salvage.

[github-actions]

🔎 Lint report: salvage/pr-23072-phantom-retry-guidance vs origin/main

ruff

Total: 0 on HEAD, 0 on base (➖ 0)

🆕 New issues: none

✅ Fixed issues: none

Unchanged: 0 pre-existing issues carried over.

ty (type checker)

Total: 8085 on HEAD, 8060 on base (🆕 +25)

🆕 New issues (15):

Rule	Count
invalid-argument-type	8
unsupported-operator	3
unresolved-attribute	3
not-subscriptable	1

First entries

tests/agent/test_codex_cloudflare_headers.py:181: [unsupported-operator] unsupported-operator: Operator `in` is not supported between objects of type `Literal["originator"]` and `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 3 union elements`
run_agent.py:2641: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `get_model_context_length` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[str, str] | Any | ... omitted 3 union elements`
tests/agent/test_codex_cloudflare_headers.py:163: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `startswith` is not defined on `dict[str, str]` in union `Unknown | str | dict[str, str]`
tests/run_agent/test_provider_attribution_headers.py:155: [unsupported-operator] unsupported-operator: Operator `not in` is not supported between objects of type `Literal["X-OpenRouter-Cache"]` and `Unknown | str | dict[str, str] | ... omitted 3 union elements`
run_agent.py:13287: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `len` is incorrect: Expected `Sized`, found `(str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[Unknown, Unknown] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (Any & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 3 union elements`
tests/run_agent/test_provider_attribution_headers.py:90: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `startswith` is not defined on `dict[str, str]` in union `Unknown | str | dict[str, str]`
run_agent.py:2339: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `query_ollama_num_ctx` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (Any & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:7160: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `build_anthropic_client` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Any | ... omitted 3 union elements`
run_agent.py:2593: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_is_oauth_token` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:2590: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `build_anthropic_client` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:13284: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_is_oauth_token` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Any | ... omitted 3 union elements`
run_agent.py:6989: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_codex_cloudflare_headers` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `Unknown | str | dict[str, str] | ... omitted 3 union elements`
tests/agent/test_codex_cloudflare_headers.py:163: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `get` is not defined on `str & ~AlwaysFalsy`, `int & ~AlwaysFalsy` in union `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 3 union elements`
tests/run_agent/test_provider_attribution_headers.py:156: [unsupported-operator] unsupported-operator: Operator `not in` is not supported between objects of type `Literal["X-OpenRouter-Cache-TTL"]` and `Unknown | str | dict[str, str] | ... omitted 3 union elements`
tests/run_agent/test_provider_attribution_headers.py:154: [not-subscriptable] not-subscriptable: Cannot subscript object of type `int` with no `__getitem__` method

✅ Fixed issues (9):

Rule	Count
invalid-argument-type	8
unresolved-attribute	1

First entries

run_agent.py:7160: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `build_anthropic_client` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Any | ... omitted 4 union elements`
tests/agent/test_codex_cloudflare_headers.py:163: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `get` is not defined on `str & ~AlwaysFalsy` in union `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Divergent`
run_agent.py:2641: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `get_model_context_length` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[str, str] | Any | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:2590: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `build_anthropic_client` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 5 union elements`
run_agent.py:13284: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_is_oauth_token` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `str | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Any | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:2339: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `query_ollama_num_ctx` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (Any & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 5 union elements`
run_agent.py:6989: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_codex_cloudflare_headers` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `Unknown | str | dict[str, str] | dict[Unknown, Unknown] | Divergent`
run_agent.py:13287: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `len` is incorrect: Expected `Sized`, found `(str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[Unknown, Unknown] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (Any & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 4 union elements`
run_agent.py:2593: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `_is_oauth_token` is incorrect: Expected `str`, found `(Unknown & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (str & ~AlwaysFalsy) | (dict[str, str] & ~AlwaysFalsy) | ... omitted 5 union elements`

Unchanged: 4240 pre-existing issues carried over.

Diagnostics are surfaced as warnings — this check never fails the build.