René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"[BUG]: Proxy startup may report success when retries are exhausted and process does not stabilize","articleBody":"## Problem\n\nThe proxy startup logic in `start-proxy-action.ts` can report successful initialization even when the proxy process fails to stabilize after retry attempts.\n\nThe previous implementation:\n\n* Retries on spawn or early exit\n* Only throws on immediate spawn errors\n* Does not explicitly fail when all retry attempts are exhausted\n* May proceed with outputs set despite no stable process remaining alive\n\nThis can lead to false-positive startup.\n\n## Impact\n\nWhen startup silently fails:\n\n* Downstream steps may fail with opaque dependency or networking errors\n* Failures manifest later in the workflow\n* Root cause becomes difficult to diagnose\n\nInstead of failing fast during initialization, workflows continue in a degraded state.\n\n## Expected Behavior\n\nIf the proxy fails to stabilize after retry attempts, startup should fail explicitly with a clear diagnostic error.\n\n## Proposed Solution\n\n* Detect retry exhaustion explicitly\n* Throw a clear error including the last exit code\n* Verify process remains alive after stabilization delay\n* Retry using a new ephemeral port before terminal failure\n* Extract startup logic into a dedicated launcher module for testability\n\nThis preserves existing outputs, telemetry behavior, and wrapper semantics while preventing silent failure.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/iaadillatif","@type":"Person","name":"iaadillatif"},"datePublished":"2026-03-01T18:50:40Z","url":"https://github.com/github/codeql-action/issues/3530"}