agent_platform_oci/MULTI_ITEM_FRAMEWORK_FIX_20260918.md

Multi-item result preservation fix

Objective

Preserve the terminal outcome of each item executed by the primary transactional tool. A failure in a later auxiliary/composite step must not erase successful item outcomes or turn an already-completed multi-item operation into a total failure.

Framework-only change

No agent/template business logic is required for this fix. The runtime now recognizes an explicit structural contract on the requested tool: a results array with two or more entries carrying boolean success or ok fields.

For workflow-backed tools the authoritative source is preferentially:

workflow.output[tool_name].results

The framework derives one of:

• SUCCESS
• PARTIAL_SUCCESS
• FAILED

and publishes a generic metadata.multi_item summary with item counts.

When one or more primary items completed successfully but the outer wrapper is ok=false because a later auxiliary/post-processing step failed, the normalized result preserves the original failure as original_ok=false / secondary_error while exposing the requested operation as operationally successful (ok=true).

The LLM context also receives an explicit generic instruction that successful per-item terminal evidence cannot be overwritten by a secondary error and that mixed outcomes must be reported individually.

Regression tests

Added tests/test_multi_item_result_normalization.py covering:

• 2 success + 1 failure -> PARTIAL_SUCCESS;
• all primary items successful + later secondary failure -> primary SUCCESS preserved;
• single-item behavior unchanged;
• unrelated nested tool results cannot override failure of the requested primary tool.