[self-care:open-source-failures] Fix shared safe-output processing failures across public project workflows

Safe-output processing is failing repeatedly after agent work completes, leaving at least three public-project workflows unable to publish their intended results. The snapshot shows seven failed runs in the last seven days, with the strongest recurrence in `githubnext/gh-aw-cao` on `Dev Practices / Well-Architected` and corroborating failures in `github/gh-aw` and `github/gh-aw-mcpg`.

**Action:** Maintainer of the safe-output pipeline should trace and fix the `Process Safe Outputs` failure path; accept when a rerun of the affected workflows completes the `safe_outputs` job successfully and publishes its expected write intent without manual intervention.

Agent prompt
Investigate the `safe_outputs` execution path shared by these workflows and fix the common failure that causes the `Process Safe Outputs` step to fail after agent completion. Compare the implementation and configuration used by `githubnext/gh-aw-cao` `software-development-practices-github-well-architected.lock.yml`, `github/gh-aw` `smoke-issues.lock.yml`, and `github/gh-aw-mcpg` `smoke-safeoutputs-issues.lock.yml`. Identify the narrowest shared defect, add or tighten automated coverage for that path, and verify reruns complete the `safe_outputs` job successfully.

Critical findings

- Severity: P1
- Shared normalized signature: `Process Safe Outputs`
- Repositories/workflows observed:
- `githubnext/gh-aw-cao` — `.github/workflows/software-development-practices-github-well-architected.lock.yml` (5 runs)
- `github/gh-aw` — `.github/workflows/smoke-issues.lock.yml` (1 run)
- `github/gh-aw-mcpg` — `.github/workflows/smoke-safeoutputs-issues.lock.yml` (1 run)
- Snapshot window: 168 hours ending `2026-09-05T02:33:28.811Z`
- Confidence: medium
- Evidence-supported cause: a shared safe-output processing path is failing, but the bounded snapshot does not expose the underlying exception.

Representative runs:
- https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw-cao/actions/runs/33936741319
- https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw-cao/actions/runs/33936736036
- https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw-cao/actions/runs/33936731025
- https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/33936697638
- https://github.com/github/gh-aw-mcpg/actions/runs/33935251159

### Control Plane
- Correlation ID: `33940059951-195`
- Central repository: `githubnext/gh-aw-cao`
- Control-plane run: https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw-cao/actions/runs/33940059951

> Generated by [SelfCare / Open Source Failures](https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw-cao/actions/runs/33940237758) · pi · gpt54 · 21.7 AIC · ⌖ 8.57 AIC · ⊞ 8.3K · [◷](https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Agithubnext%2Fgh-aw-cao+is%3Aissue+%22gh-aw-workflow-call-id%3A+githubnext%2Fgh-aw-cao%2Fself-care-open-source-failures%22&type=issues)
> - [x] expires on Sep 19, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

Compare the shared `safe_outputs` path and `Process Safe Outputs` step in `.github/workflows/software-development-practices-github-well-architected.lock.yml`, `smoke-issues.lock.yml`, and `smoke-safeoutputs-issues.lock.yml`. Start by reproducing or inspecting the failing workflow runs and tracing the common implementation; add coverage for the shared failure path. Done means affected workflow reruns complete `safe_outputs` successfully and publish the expected write intent without manual intervention.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.