Follow-up to #23282. The retry and terminal error callouts had a few UX
oddities:
- Auto-retrying states reused backend error text that said "Please try
again" even while the UI was already retrying on behalf of the user.
- Terminal error states also said "Please try again" with no action the
user could take.
- `startup_timeout` had no specific title or retry copy — it fell
through to the generic "Retrying request" heading.
- The kind pill showed raw enum values like `startup_timeout` and
`rate_limit`.
- Terminal error metadata showed a "Retryable" / "Not retryable" label
that does not help users.
- A separate "Provider anthropic" metadata row duplicated information
already present in the message body.
- The `usage-limit` error kind used a hyphen while every backend kind
uses underscores.
Changes:
**Backend (`chaterror/message.go`)**
- Split message generation into `terminalMessage()` and
`retryMessage()`, replacing the old `userFacingMessage()`.
- Terminal messages include HTTP status codes and actionable guidance
(e.g. "Check the API key, permissions, and billing settings.").
- Retry messages are clean factual statements without status codes or
remediation, suitable for the retry countdown UI (e.g. "Anthropic is
temporarily overloaded.").
- Removed "Please try again" / "Please try again later" from all paths.
- `StreamRetryPayload` calls `retryMessage()` instead of forwarding
`classified.Message`.
**Frontend**
- Removed the parallel frontend message-generation system:
`getRetryMessage()`, `getProviderDisplayName()`,
`getRetryProviderSubject()`, and the `PROVIDER_DISPLAY_NAMES` map are
all deleted from `chatStatusHelpers.ts`.
- `liveStatusModel.ts` passes `retryState.error` through directly — the
backend owns the copy.
- Added specific title and retry copy for `startup_timeout`, and
extended the title mapping to cover `auth` and `config`.
- Kind pills now show humanized labels ("Startup timeout", "Rate limit",
etc.) instead of raw enum strings.
- Removed the redundant "Provider anthropic" metadata row.
- Removed the terminal "Retryable" / "Not retryable" badge.
- Normalized `"usage-limit"` → `"usage_limit"` and added it to
`ChatProviderFailureKind` so all error kinds follow the same underscore
convention and live in one enum.
Refs #23282.
> **PR Stack**
> 1. #23351 ← `#23282`
> 2. #23282 ← `#23275`
> 3. **#23275** ← `#23349` *(you are here)*
> 4. #23349 ← `main`
---
## Summary
Extracts a structured error classification subsystem for agent chat
(`chatd`) so that retry and error payloads carry machine-readable
metadata — error kind, provider name, HTTP status code, and retryability
— instead of raw error strings.
This is the **backend half** of the error-handling work. The frontend
counterpart is in #23282.
## Changes
### New package: `coderd/chatd/chaterror/`
Canonical error classification — extracts error kind, provider, status
code, and user-facing message from raw provider errors. One source of
truth that drives both retry policy and stream payloads.
- **`kind.go`**: Error kind enum (`rate_limit`, `timeout`, `auth`,
`config`, `overloaded`, `unknown`).
- **`signals.go`**: Signal extraction — parses provider name, HTTP
status code, and retryability from error strings and wrapped types.
- **`classify.go`**: Classification logic — maps extracted signals to an
error kind.
- **`message.go`**: User-facing message templates keyed by kind +
signals.
- **`payload.go`**: Projectors that build `ChatStreamError` and
`ChatStreamRetry` payloads from a classified error.
### Modified
- **`codersdk/chats.go`**: Added `Kind`, `Provider`, `Retryable`,
`StatusCode` fields to `ChatStreamError` and `ChatStreamRetry`.
- **`coderd/chatd/chatretry/`**: Thinned to retry-policy only;
classification logic moved to `chaterror`.
- **`coderd/chatd/chatloop/`**: Added per-attempt first-chunk timeout
(60 s) via `guardedStream` wrapper — produces retryable
`startup_timeout` errors instead of hanging forever.
- **`coderd/chatd/chatd.go`**: Publishes normalized retry/error payloads
via `chaterror` projectors.
- Moves `coderd/chatd/`, `coderd/gitsync/`, `enterprise/coderd/chatd/`
under `x/` parent directories to signal instability
- Adds `Experimental:` glue code comments in `coderd/coderd.go`
> 🤖 This PR was created with the help of Coder Agents, and was
reviewed by my human. 🧑💻
Ethan