Agent Action Error Handling

Agent Action Error Handling

Agentforce agents receive the return value of an Invocable action as-is and feed it back into the LLM loop. An unhandled exception becomes a Flow or framework error — the agent cannot reason about it, often re-invokes the action with the same inputs, and occasionally confabulates success. This skill defines a Response type that always returns (status, reason_code, user_message) so the subagent instructions can route deterministically.

Terminology. Salesforce renamed agent topics to subagents in April 2026. Nothing about behaviour changed, and the API surface kept the old word — GenAiPlugin is still the metadata type behind a subagent, and GenAiFunction is still the action. This skill says subagent instructions for what older docs and your org's metadata call topic instructions.

The Platform Rule Everything Follows From

An @InvocableMethod must return one result per input, in the same order, even when errors occur — the inputs and outputs "must match on both the size and the order" (InvocableMethod Annotation).

So an error is not an exception you throw. It is a value you return in the slot belonging to the failing request. A thrown exception breaks the contract for the whole batch, not just the request that failed.

Two further platform rules shape the class: the method must be static, public or global, and live in an outer class; and there is one invocable method per class. One action is one verb — see templates/agentforce/AgentActionSkeleton.cls.

The Envelope

status and retryable are independent axes. A row lock is a retryable system error; a validation failure is a terminal user error; a 503 is a retryable system error. Collapsing them into one Boolean success is the single most common cause of agent retry loops.

Recommended Workflow

1. Design the Response class with the four fields above. Register every reasonCode in Agent_Reason_Code__mdt so Apex, subagent instructions, and dashboards share one contract.
2. Structure the method in two phases — validate and collect, then one bulkified Database.<dml>(records, false, AccessLevel.USER_MODE) — and assign results back by index into a pre-sized output list. Per-row DML raises an uncatchable LimitException under bulk invocation, which defeats every catch you write.
3. Classify by locus of control, branching on Database.Error.getStatusCode() or the HTTP status code — never on message text, which is localised and reworded between releases. Log the raw exception to templates/apex/ApplicationLogger.cls; never put getMessage() in userMessage.
4. Write one test per reason code asserting the code, the retryable flag, and that no raw platform error text reached userMessage. Coverage percentage is not the signal; assertions-per-reason-code is.
5. Add one subagent instruction per outcome class, including an explicit "do not call the action again" for terminal codes — the planner's default on an unsatisfied goal is to retry.
6. Run the Testing Center / sf agent test run scenarios that exercise each branch and confirm the agent's wording matches the instruction for each code.

Key Considerations

• userMessage is user-visible and lands in a stored transcript. Validation-rule error text can interpolate field values, so getMessage() is a PII channel as well as an implementation-detail leak.
• Distinguishing NOT_FOUND from NO_ACCESS helps internal users and leaks record existence on a guest channel. Decide per channel.
• retryable = true on a mutating action requires idempotency (a caller-supplied key upserted on an External Id). Otherwise a retried timeout is a duplicate write.
• The @InvocableMethod and @InvocableVariable description values are read by the planner to decide whether to call the action, and pre-fill the instruction fields in Agentforce Builder — they are functional, not documentation.
• Watch the SYSTEM_ERROR/UNKNOWN ratio in production. It is the direct measure of classification debt; a jump after a release means an upstream contract changed.

Worked Examples (see references/examples.md)

• Typed Response envelope for a Case-update action — Agentforce service agent closes Cases on user request.
• Stable reason_code enum across releases — A new DML error type appears after a managed-package install.

Common Gotchas (see references/gotchas.md)

• Throwing AuraHandledException from an Invocable — The agent receives an opaque framework message and loops.
• Governor-limit exceptions pre-empt your catch — LimitException (uncatchable) kills the transaction — agent sees raw Flow failure.
• Empty list returned when input list is empty — Agent receives an empty array and hallucinates a success message.

Top LLM Anti-Patterns (full list in references/llm-anti-patterns.md)

• Rethrowing exceptions from an @InvocableMethod — the LLM cannot reason about framework errors.
• Putting ex.getMessage() directly into user_message — leaks internals and breaks deterministic subagent routing.
• Using boolean success instead of a reason_code enum — the agent cannot distinguish retryable from terminal failures.

Official Sources Used

• InvocableMethod Annotation (Apex Developer Guide) — https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_classes_annotation_InvocableMethod.htm
• Create Custom Actions Using Apex InvocableMethod — https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/ai/agentforce/guide/agent-invocablemethod.html
• Agentforce Actions — https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/ai/agentforce/guide/get-started-actions.html
• Agentforce Metadata Types — https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/ai/agentforce/references/agents-metadata-tooling/agents-metadata.html
• Agentforce Testing Center — https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=ai.agent_testing_center.htm&type=5