feat(mt#1028): KB activity source — GitHub Issues/PRs provider

[minsky-ai]

Summary

Ships the GitHub half of KB activity sources. Linear provider deferred to mt#1117 — same split pattern as mt#1027 Layer 3 / mt#1108 Layer 4: subagent hit its turn limit mid-implementation; main agent finished tests + schema wiring + service registration and committed a shippable GitHub-only unit.

What's in this PR

• github-activity-provider.ts (407 lines) — KnowledgeSourceProvider with sourceType: "github-activity". Indexes issue bodies + issue comments + PR review comments. Attribution headers per segment (**Issue body** (by @alice), **Comment** (by @bob, 2026-03-01)). Document ID format: {owner}/{repo}#{number}.
• isRetryableGitHubError predicate (rate-limit aware) added to embedding-service-openai.ts. Retryable: 429, 403 with rate-limit language, 5xx. Not retryable: 401, 404, 422, 403 without rate-limit reason.
• Default bot filter: github-actions[bot], dependabot[bot], renovate[bot], etc. Users can add more via excludeAuthors.

Config schema

• knowledgeBaseEntrySchema.type enum extended with "github-activity" + "linear" (Linear stub for mt#1117).
• New entry fields: owner, repo, states?: "open"|"closed"|"all", labels?, excludeLabels?, excludeAuthors?, maxAgeDays?.
• sensitivity: "public" | "internal" | "restricted" (default "public") — restricted sources excluded from default search results. Shared across all future activity + conversational sources.

Service wiring

• knowledge-service.ts createProvider switch: new "github-activity" case, lazy-loads via dynamic import. Credential + owner/repo validation mirrors the Notion pattern.

Tests (8 tests, all pass)

• listDocuments yields documents with attribution headers for body + comments
• Default bot-author exclusion (body + comment)
• excludeLabels drops issues with any matching label
• labels requires all listed labels present
• maxAgeDays filters by updated_at
• fetchDocument by owner/repo#number id
• Malformed id rejection
• 429 retry succeeds on second attempt

Out of scope (explicitly deferred to follow-ups)

• Linear provider → mt#1117 (filed; Linear half with GraphQL API + same schema shape)
• Task-backend overlap docs note in docs/architecture.md §9 — will consolidate into the mt#1117 docs rollup (same pattern as mt#1027 → mt#1108 docs consolidation)
• CLI warning when a repo is configured as both task backend AND activity source — deferred to mt#1117 (low-risk; information-only)
• Jira provider, GitHub Discussions — separate future tasks

Action required

Merging this closes mt#1028 as scope-reduced. Linear (mt#1117) ships separately. The sensitivity config field + the activity-track type-enum + the schema shape are all in place, so mt#1117 is a pure provider + tests task.

Test plan

• 8 unit tests pass locally
• Pre-commit hook: format, tsc, lint, tests, secrets scan all pass
• lint:strict (max-warnings=0) clean
• End-to-end verification against a real GitHub repo → deferred (requires token + real issues; will ride along with mt#1117)

---

🤖 Implementation by a subagent through the provider file, finished from main after the subagent hit its turn limit. Main agent wrote the 8 unit tests, extended types.ts + knowledge-bases.ts schemas, registered the provider in knowledge-service.ts, fixed three non-null-assertion lint warnings, and filed mt#1117 for the Linear half.

[minsky-reviewer]

Independent adversarial review (Chinese-wall)
Reviewer: minsky-reviewer[bot] via openai:gpt-5
Tier: unknown

---

Findings

[BLOCKING] Silent data corruption on fetchDocument when ID owner/repo differs from provider config

• File: src/domain/knowledge/providers/github-activity-provider.ts: approx. 380–407 (buildDocument return object)
• Evidence: fetchDocument accepts any id of the form owner/repo#number (lines ~267–296) and fetches the issue for those owner/repo values. However, buildDocument constructs the returned document using this.owner and this.repo:
  • id: ${this.owner}/${this.repo}#${issue.number}
  • title: ${this.owner}/${this.repo} #${issue.number}: ${issue.title}
  • metadata.owner: this.owner
  • metadata.repo: this.repo
• Failure mode: If fetchDocument is called with an ID that does not match the provider’s configured owner/repo, the returned document will be incorrectly labeled (IDs and metadata will point to the provider’s configured repo, not the fetched issue’s repo). This is a correctness and attribution bug that can lead to cross-repo document contamination.
• Remediation options:
  • Enforce that parsed owner/repo from the ID matches this.owner/this.repo and throw if not.
  • Or pass the parsed owner/repo through to buildDocument (and use them when constructing id/title/metadata) so the document reflects the real repository.

[BLOCKING] lastModified omits PR review comments’ timestamps

• File: src/domain/knowledge/providers/github-activity-provider.ts: approx. 360–370 (within buildDocument)
• Evidence: lastModified is computed as max of issue.updated_at and issue/PR comments’ updated_at:
  const allDates = [new Date(issue.updated_at), ...comments.map((c) => new Date(c.updated_at))];
  It does not include reviewComments when isPR is true.
• Failure mode: For PRs where the latest activity is a review comment, lastModified will be stale. This affects sync freshness, staleness classification, and any incremental sync that relies on lastModified.
• Remediation: Include PR reviewComments’ updated_at in the allDates aggregation.

[NON-BLOCKING] Retry predicate misses common network error strings (fetch failed), risking no retry on transient network faults

• File: src/domain/ai/embedding-service-openai.ts: approx. 15–45 (isRetryableGitHubError)
• Evidence: The function retries when the message matches:
  • /^GitHub API error: (429|5\d\d)/i or 429|rate.limit|503|Service Unavailable|ECONNRESET|ETIMEDOUT
• In Node/Bun, transient network errors are frequently thrown as TypeError: fetch failed or similar messages that do not include ECONNRESET/ETIMEDOUT text. Those would not match this predicate, so IntelligentRetryService would not retry, even though they are transient.
• Suggestion: Extend the predicate to include generic fetch failures (e.g., /\bfetch failed\b/i, /\bnetwork error\b/i, /\bsocket hang up\b/i) and/or detect TypeError instances from fetch.

[NON-BLOCKING] Service type/schema inconsistency for linear

• Files:
  • src/domain/configuration/schemas/knowledge-bases.ts: type enum includes "linear"
  • src/domain/knowledge/types.ts: KnowledgeSourceConfig.type includes "linear"
  • src/domain/knowledge/knowledge-service.ts: createProvider switch has no "linear" case; default error message lists “notion”, “google-docs”, “github-activity” only
• Risk: A user configuring a linear source (allowed by schema/types per PR) will get a runtime “Unsupported knowledge source type” error. The PR description calls Linear “stub for mt#1117,” but the schema admission without service wiring is a papercut.
• Suggestion: Either remove “linear” from the enum until wired, or add a temporary helpful error (explicit case "linear" with a clear “not implemented yet, see mt#1117” message) to avoid confusion.

[NON-BLOCKING] Test gaps

• File: src/domain/knowledge/providers/github-activity-provider.test.ts
• Gaps:
  • No test that PR review comments are included in content and affect lastModified (would have caught the lastModified omission).
  • No test asserting fetchDocument rejects IDs for other owner/repo or at least that it preserves/validates owner/repo consistency.
  • No test for states filter (open/closed/all) being propagated to the issues query and respected.
  • No test for 403 primary rate limit retry path (message includes “rate limit”).
  • No test for custom excludeAuthors beyond the default bot list.
• Suggestion: Add tests covering these behaviors, particularly the review comment freshness and owner/repo mismatch cases.

[PRE-EXISTING] “confluence” present in type enums but not supported by knowledge-service

• Files:
  • src/domain/knowledge/types.ts and src/domain/configuration/schemas/knowledge-bases.ts: include "confluence"
  • src/domain/knowledge/knowledge-service.ts: no “confluence” case in createProvider and default error message omits it
• This appears to predate the PR; mentioning for awareness only.

Spec verification

• Provider implemented: GitHub Issues/PRs indexing with attribution headers
  • Met (implementation present). Note: review comments are included in content but not covered by tests, and lastModified excludes review comment timestamps (see blocking).
• isRetryableGitHubError added with rate-limit awareness
  • Met (function present). Caveat: see network error gap above.
• Default bot filter and excludeAuthors override
  • Met (DEFAULT_BOT_AUTHORS list; excludeAuthors merged). Tests cover bot exclusion for body and comments.
• Config schema extended (type enum includes "github-activity", "linear"; fields owner, repo, states, labels, excludeLabels, excludeAuthors, maxAgeDays; sensitivity)
  • Met.
• Service wiring: knowledge-service adds "github-activity" case, dynamic import, token/owner/repo validation
  • Met. Note: “linear” not wired; see non-blocking inconsistency above.
• Tests (8)
  • listDocuments yields attribution headers for body + comments: Met
  • Default bot-author exclusion: Met
  • excludeLabels drops issues: Met
  • labels requires all: Met
  • maxAgeDays filters by updated_at: Met
  • fetchDocument by id: Met
  • Malformed id rejection: Met
  • 429 retry succeeds: Met

Documentation impact

• Needs updates:
  • Document the new “github-activity” provider configuration and semantics (fields: owner, repo, states, labels/excludeLabels, excludeAuthors, maxAgeDays).
  • Document the new sensitivity field and how it affects default search behavior across sources.
  • Note that “linear” appears in the schema but is not yet supported (or remove from schema until mt#1117 ships).
• PR description states some docs are deferred; please ensure a tracking issue links to the required docs changes.

Conclusion

REQUEST_CHANGES

Blocking issues to address before merge:

• Fix fetchDocument to either enforce owner/repo match with provider config or construct the document using the owner/repo parsed from the ID (and ensure metadata/id/title reflect the actual repo).
• Include PR review comments’ updated_at in lastModified computation. Add a test to prevent regression.

Non-blocking improvements are noted above (retry predicate resilience, linear wiring clarity, and test coverage).