---
title: "Agent File Update Tests and Section Ordering Bug Fix"
date: 2026-01-02
keywords: [testing, bash, agent-context, bug-fix, state-machine, specify]
commits: 1
compression_status: uncompressed
---

# Session Summary

**Date:** 2026-01-02
**Focus Area:** Add comprehensive tests for agent file update logic and fix discovered bug

# Accomplishments

- [x] Created test-agent-update.sh with 33 test cases
- [x] Discovered and fixed bug in update-agent-context.sh section ordering
- [x] Tests cover: basic functionality, missing sections, timestamps, idempotency, change limits, DB entries, placement, edge cases
- [x] Closed skills-hgm (Add tests for agent file update logic)
- [x] Previous session: Completed skills-x33 (branch name tests - 27 tests)

# Key Decisions

## Decision 1: Test extraction approach using awk instead of sed

- **Context:** Need to extract functions from update-agent-context.sh for isolated testing
- **Options considered:**
  1. `sed -n '/^function()/,/^}$/p'` - Original approach
  2. `awk '/^function\(\)/,/^}$/ {print; if (/^}$/) exit}'` - More precise
  3. Source entire script with mocked dependencies
- **Rationale:** awk with explicit exit on closing brace is more reliable for multi-function scripts
- **Impact:** Clean function extraction without pulling in adjacent functions

## Decision 2: Fix the bug rather than document as expected behavior

- **Context:** Found that Recent Changes section was silently skipped when preceded by Active Technologies
- **Rationale:** This was clearly unintended behavior - the code was supposed to update both sections
- **Impact:** Agent context files now correctly receive change entries regardless of section ordering

# Problems & Solutions

| Problem | Solution | Learning |
|---------|----------|----------|
| eval/sed extraction didn't work correctly for update_existing_agent_file | Used awk with explicit exit on `^}$` pattern | awk is more precise for function boundary detection |
| Tests failing: change entries not added to existing Recent Changes | Traced through code, found `## Recent Changes` caught by generic "close tech section on any ##" logic | State machine section handlers must check specific headers before generic patterns |
| Idempotency test counting wrong pattern | Pattern "Python + Django" appeared in both tech and change sections | Use anchored regex `^- pattern$` for specific line matching |

# Technical Details

## Code Changes

- Total files modified: 2
- Key files changed:
  - `.specify/scripts/bash/update-agent-context.sh` - Fixed section ordering in while loop
  - `.specify/scripts/bash/tests/test-agent-update.sh` - New test file (33 tests)

## The Bug

The `update_existing_agent_file` function processes files line-by-line with a state machine. When in the Active Technologies section (`in_tech_section=true`), encountering any `##` header would:

1. Add pending tech entries
2. Echo the header line
3. Set `in_tech_section=false`
4. **Continue to next iteration** ← Bug here!

This meant `## Recent Changes` was echoed but the change entry addition code (which checks `if [[ "$line" == "## Recent Changes" ]]`) was never reached.

**Fix:** Check for `## Recent Changes` BEFORE the generic "any ## closes tech section" logic:

```bash
# Handle Recent Changes section FIRST (before generic ## handling)
if [[ "$line" == "## Recent Changes" ]]; then
    # Close tech section if we were in it
    if [[ $in_tech_section == true ]]; then
        if [[ $tech_entries_added == false ]] && [[ ${#new_tech_entries[@]} -gt 0 ]]; then
            printf '%s\n' "${new_tech_entries[@]}" >> "$temp_file"
            tech_entries_added=true
        fi
        in_tech_section=false
    fi
    echo "$line" >> "$temp_file"
    # Add new change entry right after the heading
    if [[ -n "$new_change_entry" ]]; then
        echo "$new_change_entry" >> "$temp_file"
    fi
    ...
fi
```

## Test Categories

1. **Basic Functionality** (4 tests) - Tech/change entries added, existing content preserved
2. **Missing Sections** (6 tests) - Creates sections when absent
3. **Timestamp Updates** (2 tests) - Updates `**Last updated**:` dates
4. **Idempotency** (1 test) - No duplicates when re-running
5. **Change Entry Limits** (5 tests) - Max 2 existing changes kept
6. **Database Entries** (3 tests) - DB-only additions work
7. **Tech Entry Placement** (3 tests) - Entries at correct position
8. **Edge Cases** (5 tests) - Empty, NEEDS CLARIFICATION, EOF handling
9. **format_technology_stack** (4 tests) - Helper function unit tests

## Commands Used

```bash
# Run the tests
bash .specify/scripts/bash/tests/test-agent-update.sh

# Debug function extraction
eval "$(awk '/^update_existing_agent_file\(\)/,/^}$/ {print; if (/^}$/) exit}' script.sh)"

# Trace execution
bash -x -c '...'
```

# Process and Workflow

## What Worked Well

- Test-first debugging: Writing tests exposed the bug immediately
- Incremental tracing: Adding debug output to narrow down the issue
- Hypothesis testing: Created minimal test cases to verify the bug cause

## What Was Challenging

- Function extraction: eval/sed patterns are finicky with nested braces
- Understanding state machine flow: Had to trace through manually to find where `continue` was short-circuiting

# Learning and Insights

## Technical Insights

- Bash state machines need careful ordering: specific cases before generic patterns
- `continue` in while loops can silently skip subsequent handlers
- Test fixtures with `setup_test_file()` using heredocs are clean for bash testing
- grep patterns for line counting need anchoring to avoid false positives

## Process Insights

- When tests fail unexpectedly, the code might be buggy (not just the tests)
- Adding debug output (`echo "DEBUG: ..." >&2`) is fast way to trace bash

# Context for Future Work

## Open Questions

- Should we add more tests for create_new_agent_file function?
- Consider shellcheck/shfmt for the test files?

## Next Steps

- skills-s92: Add tests for deploy-skill.sh (continues testing theme)
- skills-7bu: Add atomic file operations (related to file update code)
- Rebuild home-manager to deploy updated script

## Related Work

- [2026-01-01-ops-review-phase-3-and-worklog-migration.md](2026-01-01-ops-review-phase-3-and-worklog-migration.md) - Previous session
- skills-x33: Branch name tests (27 tests, completed in prior session)

# Raw Notes

- The deployed worklog skill still uses .org format; repo has .md
- Network issue prevented bd sync (192.168.1.108:3000 unreachable)
- Total test count across both test files: 60 tests (27 branch + 33 agent)

# Session Metrics

- Commits made: 1
- Files touched: 2
- Lines added/removed: +536/-13
- Tests added: 33
- Tests passing: 33/33
