[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title not updating by stephmilovic · Pull Request #233219 · elastic/kibana

stephmilovic · 2025-08-27T21:53:07Z

Summary

While working on assistant sharing, I discovered several related bugs tied to race conditions and async/sync mismatches in conversation handling:

The assistant’s first response was sometimes not saved properly.
Conversation titles were not reliably updated in the UI.
The loading comment during message send would disappear and reappear, causing a distracting flicker.

These issues were all related to conflicts in updating the data stream after changes were made to run title generation and first message handling asynchronously within the graph.

Root Causes

Data Conflicts During Message Append
- Race conditions caused the first response not to persist.
- Retry logic was attempted but max retries were too low, so some updates failed.
Title Not Updating Reliably
- When sending a message, the client sometimes fetched the conversation before the title was ready, leaving it empty.
Loading Comment Flicker
- isFetchingResponse state only covered API call completion, not the entire message flow.
- This created a gap between API finish and response render where the loading state disappeared.

Fixes Implemented

Backend

File: append_conversation_messages.ts
- Replaced updateByQuery with DocumentsDataWriter.bulk for safer updates.
- Updated semantic_text handling to use doc updates instead of scripts.
- Function signature updated to accept DocumentsDataWriter.

Frontend

File: use_chat_send.tsx
- Added retry logic for fetching conversation titles after receiving the first response.
- Introduced local isLoadingChatSend state that persists for the entire flow.
- Wrapped message handling in a try...finally block to ensure consistent state.
- Return value now respects local loading state instead of API-only state.

Results

✅ Assistant’s first response is always saved
✅ Conversation titles now update reliably, even under async conditions
✅ Loading comment stays visible until the full response arrives (no flicker)
✅ Improved user experience with smooth, reliable message handling

Visual Examples

Missing first response due to race condition:
Title not updating reliably in UI:

How to Test

Create multiple new conversations in the UI.
Verify:
- Each conversation always gets a title.
- The assistant’s first response is consistently saved.
- The loading comment stays visible until the assistant’s response fully appears.
- No flicker or disappearing comments.

elasticmachine · 2025-08-27T21:53:11Z

Pinging @elastic/security-solution (Team: SecuritySolution)

stephmilovic · 2025-08-27T21:58:01Z

This change: https://github.com/elastic/kibana/pull/232288/files#r2305375978
Could also be contributing to these bugs, but I created 100 conversations in the UI and didn't see the title creation have a conflict so I think it's ok?

e40pud · 2025-08-28T09:38:02Z

We might want to consider using this bulk update API option https://www.elastic.co/docs/api/doc/elasticsearch/operation/operation-bulk#operation-bulk-body-application-json-update-retry_on_conflict

KDKHD · 2025-08-28T10:04:53Z

Client side changes look good! @e40pud's suggestion sounds reasonable for the server-side code.

e40pud · 2025-08-28T10:32:11Z

Here are the changes that I proposed #233288

stephmilovic · 2025-08-28T14:27:21Z

Here are the changes that I proposed #233288

This is great for the bulk update, but since append_conversation_message uses esClient.updateByQuery, we cannot use the same solution unless we rewrite it to use the bulk updater.

KDKHD · 2025-09-08T15:50:13Z

...tic_assistant/server/ai_assistant_data_clients/conversations/append_conversation_messages.ts

  ]);

-  const maxRetries = 3;
+  const maxRetries = 10;


I do not think this is enough. I have seen up to 8 retries happen.

We should fix the exponential backoff below to actually be exponential. E.g:

const delay = Math.min(50 * 2 ** attempt, 1000);

stephmilovic · 2025-09-11T17:13:49Z

@elasticmachine merge upstream

KDKHD

Tested locally and was unable to reproduce the original issue.

elasticmachine · 2025-09-11T19:51:53Z

💚 Build Succeeded

Buildkite Build
Commit: fbc7c0a

Metrics [docs]

Page load bundle

Size of the bundles that are downloaded on every page load. Target size is below 100kb

id	before	after	diff
`elasticAssistant`	301.5KB	301.7KB	+133.0B

History

💚 Build #337589 succeeded 09ef3ac
💔 Build #337579 failed 73b1f4a
💚 Build #333400 succeeded 4e80791

kibanamachine · 2025-09-11T20:07:13Z

Starting backport for target branches: 8.19, 9.1

https://github.com/elastic/kibana/actions/runs/17656003638

kibanamachine · 2025-09-11T20:15:09Z

💔 All backports failed

Status	Branch	Result
❌	8.19	Backport failed because of merge conflicts
❌	9.1	Backport failed because of merge conflicts

Manual backport

To create the backport manually run:

node scripts/backport --pr 233219

Questions ?

Please refer to the Backport tool documentation

stephmilovic · 2025-09-12T19:10:56Z

💚 All backports created successfully

Status	Branch	Result
✅	9.1
✅	8.19

Note: Successful backport PRs will be merged automatically after passing CI.

Questions ?

Please refer to the Backport tool documentation

…t updating (elastic#233219) (cherry picked from commit b81bbd0)

…t updating (elastic#233219)

…itle not updating (#233219) (#234967) # Backport This will backport the following commits from `main` to `8.19`: - [[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title not updating (#233219)](#233219)  ### Questions ? Please refer to the [Backport tool documentation](https://github.com/sorenlouv/backport)  --------- Co-authored-by: Ievgen Sorokopud <ievgen.sorokopud@elastic.co>

…tle not updating (#233219) (#234966) # Backport This will backport the following commits from `main` to `9.1`: - [[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title not updating (#233219)](#233219)  ### Questions ? Please refer to the [Backport tool documentation](https://github.com/sorenlouv/backport)  --------- Co-authored-by: Ievgen Sorokopud <ievgen.sorokopud@elastic.co>

…t updating (elastic#233219)

…t updating (#233219)

retries

4e80791

stephmilovic added the release_note:fix label Aug 27, 2025

stephmilovic requested a review from a team as a code owner August 27, 2025 21:53

stephmilovic added Team: SecuritySolution Security Solutions Team working on SIEM, Endpoint, Timeline, Resolver, etc. backport:version Backport to applied version labels v9.2.0 v9.1.3 v8.19.3 labels Aug 27, 2025

KDKHD approved these changes Sep 8, 2025

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KDKHD reviewed Sep 8, 2025

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stephmilovic added 3 commits September 9, 2025 14:01

Merge branch 'main' into retries_convo

d638324

fix

09cfe48

fix bad types

73b1f4a

stephmilovic requested a review from KDKHD September 9, 2025 20:47

stephmilovic added 2 commits September 9, 2025 15:13

add tests and fix type

d6c737c

test cleanup

09ef3ac

Merge branch 'main' into retries_convo

fbc7c0a

KDKHD approved these changes Sep 11, 2025

View reviewed changes

stephmilovic merged commit b81bbd0 into elastic:main Sep 11, 2025
12 checks passed

stephmilovic mentioned this pull request Sep 12, 2025

[9.1] [Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title not updating (#233219) #234966

Merged

stephmilovic mentioned this pull request Sep 12, 2025

[8.19] [Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title not updating (#233219) #234967

Merged

stephmilovic added a commit to stephmilovic/kibana that referenced this pull request Sep 12, 2025

[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title no…

f0d4663

…t updating (elastic#233219) (cherry picked from commit b81bbd0)

stephmilovic added a commit to stephmilovic/kibana that referenced this pull request Sep 12, 2025

[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title no…

a8bf79f

…t updating (elastic#233219) (cherry picked from commit b81bbd0)

KodeRad pushed a commit to KodeRad/kibana that referenced this pull request Sep 15, 2025

[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title no…

f2c0fb0

…t updating (elastic#233219)

kibanamachine added the v8.19.4 label Sep 15, 2025

kibanamachine added the v9.1.4 label Sep 15, 2025

CAWilson94 pushed a commit to CAWilson94/kibana that referenced this pull request Sep 24, 2025

[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title no…

ad14dec

…t updating (elastic#233219)

niros1 pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 30, 2025

[Security Assistant] Fixes conversation message not appended/title no…

f769bb0

…t updating (#233219)

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stephmilovic commented Aug 27, 2025 • edited by kibanamachine Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Summary

Root Causes

Fixes Implemented

Backend

Frontend

Results

Visual Examples

How to Test

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elasticmachine commented Aug 27, 2025

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e40pud commented Aug 28, 2025

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elasticmachine commented Sep 11, 2025

💚 Build Succeeded

Metrics [docs]

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kibanamachine commented Sep 11, 2025

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kibanamachine commented Sep 11, 2025

💔 All backports failed

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stephmilovic commented Sep 12, 2025

💚 All backports created successfully

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stephmilovic commented Aug 27, 2025 •

edited by kibanamachine

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