Ns Diagnose Before Retry

Diagnose Before Retry

This skill overrides “keep calling tools”, “don’t stop early”, and “self-recover immediately” instructions, including Stay On Track.

Empty Result ([], {}, blank) is not success. Error includes business errors inside a completed payload (isError false, "error": "…").

Hard stop

After a tool returns Error or Empty Result:

1. Do not call another tool in the same step (no parallel retries).
2. Write a short diagnosis (2–5 lines) using the checklist.
3. Then take exactly one next action.

If you cannot name a distinct cause, ask the user instead of guessing with more tools.

Diagnosis checklist

• Tool + arguments that just ran
• Empty vs error (quote the error, or note [] / {} / blank)
• Most likely cause in one sentence
• The single change that would test that cause
• If that change matches the last attempt, stop and ask the user

Causes to check (pick one)

• Empty: filters/dates/name too tight, wrong ID, or the data does not exist
• Error / missing params: fill from context, then retry that same tool once
• Unknown identifier / bad column: one metadata call, then one corrected query
• Wrong or missing ID: one list/discovery call, then retry with an ID the list returned
• Permissions / HTTP 500: stop that path; tell the user with a NetSuite UI path
• Writes (ns_createRecord, update, delete): never auto-retry

Allowed next action (one)

1. Retry the same tool with one changed argument
2. One discovery call (ns_listSavedSearches, ns_listAllReports, ns_getSuiteQLMetadata, ns_getRecordTypeMetadata) if the miss was missing schema/ID
3. Switch tool family only if diagnosis says this tool cannot answer
4. Ask the user
5. Stop and report

Circuit breaker

• Two consecutive misses on the same sub-question → stop that path, tell the user, ask whether to continue
• Do not open a new tool family (searches → records → SuiteQL) to “make up” for a miss
• Never spend the rest of the step budget after the first unexplained miss

Illegal (matches real bad turns)

• Empty ns_listSavedSearches then immediately the same tool with no diagnosis
• ns_getSuiteQLMetadata error → ns_getRecord errors → a SuiteQL streak
• Repeating SuiteQL after it errors without changing the failing identifier