github / github/copilot-cli

task_complete not written to output causes loss of actual result

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#2,482 2 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
area:agents area:non-interactive
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Description

### Describe the bug

Regression/Related: https://github.com/github/copilot-cli/issues/1324

`copilot -p "some task e.g. review" --autopilot --model "claude-opus-4.6"` Sometimes has no meaningful output (e.g. Agent says it has everything to output a review but nothing is "written" to the output)

if you call `copilot -p "continue" --continue --autopilot --model "claude-opus-4.6"` it will tell you that the result is already in the task_complete and therefore it is done and has nothing further to do.

if you use `--excluded-tools task_complete` the agent will not terminate and tries to "search" for a way to terminate since everything is already done. Workaround: set `--max-autopilot-continues` to something low e.g. 3. But you still don't have access to the content of the task_completed result.

### Affected version

1.0.14

### Steps to reproduce the behavior

`copilot -p "some task e.g. review" --autopilot --model "claude-opus-4.6"` happens roughly in 1 of 10 tries.

### Expected behavior

The task_completed output is written to STDOUT

### Additional context

Workaround: add a task_completed hook to get the content. But since the agent sometimes outputs to STDOUT and sometimes via task_completed it requires some logic the fetch tp correct output.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the issue with the `copilot -p` commands using `--autopilot`, `--continue`, and `--excluded-tools task_complete`, then trace how `task_complete` output is handled versus STDOUT. Confirm the fix by verifying that the task_completed result is written to STDOUT in cases where the agent does not otherwise produce meaningful output.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
shell
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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