fix(uipath-maestro-flow): a HITL form collects input; it does not display output

[rockymadden]

Stacked on #3091 → #3090 → #3088. Retarget as each lands.

Problem

skill-flow-cli-dice-roller-simulated asked for a die roll "displayed somewhere the user can actually see it, not buried in a log". The agent built script → uipath.human-in-the-loop.quick-form → End, wired correctly, and the run never finished:

Status: Running (2/3 elements completed)
  v start        [Completed]
  v rollDice     [Completed]
  > displayRoll1 [InProgress]
Still polling... status: Running (282s elapsed)

The checker gave up at its 600s cap with the instance still Running. The Action Center task sat unassigned — nobody was ever going to submit it.

The agent then read the roll out of the task by hand and reported "It rolled 4". True, and not the flow working.

Why the skill let it happen

planning.md's "When to Select" table had no row for this case. Every No row was about a human not being involved:

Situation	Select?
Fully automated processing, no human involvement	No

Here a human plainly was involved — they asked to see the number. Nothing said the form is the wrong instrument for showing them something.

Fix

New row and the rule behind it:

A form collects input from a human. It does not display output to one. "Show me the result", "display the number", "surface it where I can see it" is an out variable mapped on the End node, which is what the run returns — not a form to look at.

Plus why the symptom misleads: the outcome-completed port can be wired correctly and the flow still never reaches End, so it looks nothing like the existing unwired-port failure mode already documented two rows above.

impl.md's Debug table gains the matching symptom: run never finishes, instance stays Running to the timeout, ports all wired.

Covers the second half too

That flow also declared globals: [] with no outputs on its End node. Even with the form removed, the roll would not have surfaced. The new text answers that directly — the out variable is the display mechanism.

Verification

• All maintenance checkers clean apart from the anchor pre-existing on main; the new planning.md#when-to-select cross-reference resolves.
• Both flavors compose.
• Docs only. No task file changed — the task's ask is reasonable and the agent's reading of it was not.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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PR Review: fix(uipath-maestro-flow): HITL form collects input, not display output

• Read review criteria and project conventions
• Read the full diff
• Read changed files in full context
• Check relative links resolve
• Check for cross-skill references and secrets
• Post review

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Summary

Adds a "When to Select → No" row to planning.md for the case where a user wants to see output (not provide input), with an explanatory paragraph. Adds the matching debug symptom to impl.md's error table. Both additions are well-motivated by the failure mode described in the PR body.

Change-by-Change Review

1. skills/uipath-maestro-flow/references/author/plugins/hitl/planning.md — +5/−0

Severity: OK

New table row at line 33 and two explanatory paragraphs (lines 35–37) are clear, prescriptive, and well-scoped. The rule ("a form collects input; it does not display output") is the right abstraction — it covers the concrete dice-roller failure and generalizes to any "show me X" prompt. The explanation of why the symptom is misleading (ports wired correctly, but flow never reaches End) is valuable because it distinguishes this from the existing unwired-port row.

No issues found.

2. skills/uipath-maestro-flow/references/author/plugins/hitl/impl.md — +2/−1

Severity: Low (pre-existing)

New debug table row at line 178 matches the planning guidance and cross-links with [planning.md](planning.md#when-to-select). The anchor resolves to the correct heading (line 23 of planning.md).

The file still lacks a trailing newline — this is pre-existing from the base branch (the -1 in the diff is just the no-newline marker moving down), so not introduced by this PR.

What's Missing

Nothing identified.

Area Ratings

Area	Status	Notes
Frontmatter	OK	No frontmatter changes
E2E Tests	OK	Docs-only change; PR description explains why no task change is needed
Skill Body	OK	No SKILL.md changes
References & Assets	OK	Both changed files are correct, links resolve
Repo Hygiene	OK	No secrets, no cross-skill deps, changes scoped to one skill

Issues for Manual Review

None found.

Conclusion

Clean docs-only fix. The new planning row and debug symptom close a real gap — the skill had no guidance for the "display output via form" anti-pattern, leading an agent to build a flow that hangs forever. The writing is concise and correctly distinguishes this from the existing unwired-port failure mode. Approve.

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[rockymadden]

Reframed — the first version optimised for the checker

Pushback on review, correctly. The original rule said:

A form collects input from a human. It does not display output to one. ... is an out variable mapped on the End node

Both halves are wrong.

A quick-form renders fields to a person, so it does display. That was a claim about the node that is not true.

An out variable is the run's return value. For a user who asked to see the result "not buried in a log", that is a log by another name. The guidance would have made this eval pass while giving a real user precisely the thing they said they did not want.

The actual constraint

Not what a form can show — that a HITL node blocks until a human completes its task, so it belongs only where a human will. An unassigned task, or any unattended run, leaves the instance Running to the caller's timeout with no output.

"Show me the result" is now a choice between three mechanisms, compared on the two axes that decide it:

Mechanism	Reaches	Completes unattended
HITL form	a person who opens Action Center	No — blocks until submitted
Message to a channel or mailbox	a person wherever they already are	Yes
out variable on the End node	whoever or whatever invoked the flow	Yes

Ask which is meant. With nobody to ask, take one that terminates and record the choice. And: "do not reach for a form because the request said display — that word describes the goal, not the node."

Note the middle row. For the dice task a Slack or email node is arguably the best answer and the first version ruled it out by implication, which is how you can tell the rule was written backwards from the assertion.

Why this matters beyond one task

The dice-roller failure was the agent producing a confident wrong build. My first fix was me doing the same thing one layer up: writing a rule that satisfies the grader and misleads the user. Worth flagging since this PR series exists to stop exactly that.