Workflows ship two expression languages in adjacent fields. Agent
`prompt_template` and end `output_template` are Jinja2, so `{{query}}` is
correct there. State and condition `expression` fields are bare CEL,
where the same string is a parse error.
Nothing told users this. docs/content/Agents/nodes.mdx documented the
pre-CEL Set State node with `{{variable_name}}` examples and Set /
Increment / Append operations that no longer exist — "CEL" appeared
nowhere in the docs. The builder's own placeholder was `input.foo + 1`,
referencing an `input` namespace that is not in workflow state, while the
panel beside it advertised `{{ agent.variable }}`.
There was also no validation anywhere: neither validateWorkflow nor
validate_workflow_structure looked at state nodes at all, and conditions
were only checked for a non-empty string. A workflow containing
`{{query}}` saved and published clean, then aborted on the first message
with a bare caret dump that sanitize_api_error collapsed into "An error
occurred … please try again later" — advice that sends the user round the
same loop, which is what the 2026-08-01 report shows.
Adds validate_cel_expression (compile-only, since state is built at run
time and unresolved names are not knowable when saving) and wires it into
the workflow save path for both node types, plus the half-configured
state operations the engine silently skips. `{{ }}` gets a targeted hint,
raised only after compilation has already failed so valid CEL that
contains braces — `x == "{{y}}"`, or a nested map literal — is not
rejected.
celpy errors are now summarized: undeclared-reference messages embed a
repr of the entire activation, thousands of characters including the
user's own query, and others interpolate the offending state value.
Quoted fragments that are not bare identifiers are redacted, since
config errors now bypass sanitize_api_error to reach the user, and a
shared agent's runner is not its owner.
Docs rewritten with a table of which field takes which syntax, CEL
examples for Set State, and the Condition node section that basics.mdx
has been linking to all along.
- Replay prior-turn assistant text as input_text, not output_text: a
Responses easy-input message only accepts input_* content parts, so the
old shape would 400 on the second turn of every conversation (default
store=false resends prior turns inline).
- Always request include=["reasoning.encrypted_content"] so in-turn
reasoning carryover works whether or not the response is also stored
server-side (OPENAI_RESPONSES_STORE).
- Add detail="auto" to input_image parts.
- Remove the now-dead azure_openai option from setup.sh / setup.ps1 and
the docs, completing the AzureOpenAILLM removal.
- Tests: correct the input_text / image-detail / include assertions and
add parallel tool-call and stream-error coverage.
Alex