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Add restricted-tool triage guidance for tool denials - #53025

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copilot/evoskill-add-restricted-tool-triage
Aug 16, 2026
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Add restricted-tool triage guidance for tool denials#53025
pelikhan merged 2 commits into
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copilot/evoskill-add-restricted-tool-triage

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Copilot AI commented Aug 16, 2026

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Agents with narrow tool allowlists can exhaust the session denial budget by retrying disallowed commands and may misdiagnose intentional restrictions as infrastructure failures.

  • Denial handling

    • Inspect the declared allowlist before invoking tools.
    • Pivot after the first denial instead of retrying command variants.
    • Preserve the non-renewable denial budget.
  • Capability triage

    • Map required capabilities to explicitly allowed tools.
    • Complete partial work when no permitted substitute exists.
    • Report the specific missing capability without attributing allowlist denials to credentials or permissions.
  • Operational guidance

    • Adds triggers, a step-by-step procedure, stop conditions, and a verification checklist in .github/skills/restricted-tool-triage/SKILL.md.

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Add restricted-tool-triage skill for tool-denial handling Add restricted-tool triage guidance for tool denials Aug 16, 2026
Copilot AI requested a review from pelikhan August 16, 2026 03:36
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pelikhan marked this pull request as ready for review August 16, 2026 03:40
Copilot AI balanced review requested due to automatic review settings August 16, 2026 03:40
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pelikhan merged commit ed0b931 into main Aug 16, 2026
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pelikhan deleted the copilot/evoskill-add-restricted-tool-triage branch August 16, 2026 03:40

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Pull request overview

Adds agent guidance for safely handling tool denials in restricted gh-aw workflows.

Changes:

  • Documents denial-budget awareness and capability-based fallback.
  • Adds triage procedures, verification checks, and stop conditions.
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File Description
.github/skills/restricted-tool-triage/SKILL.md Adds restricted-tool denial triage guidance.

Review details

  • Files reviewed: 1/1 changed files
  • Comments generated: 2
  • Review effort level: Balanced


## Stop conditions

- If you reach 2 denials, stop attempting anything not certain to be in the allowlist — finish with only allowed tools and report the limitation.

## Procedure

1. **Read the allowlist first, before acting.** Before issuing any shell/file/MCP command, check the workflow's declared `tools:` block (frontmatter `bash: [...]`, `edit:`, MCP `toolsets:`, etc.) if visible in context, or infer it from the first denial message, which echoes the exact denied command. Do not assume general-purpose shell access is available just because the environment looks like a normal shell.
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🎉 This pull request is included in a new release.

Release: v0.87.1

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[evoskill] Add restricted-tool-triage skill for gh-aw agent tool-denial handling

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