Job Failure Analyzer

Prerequisites

Required MCP Servers:

• aap-mcp-job-management - Job details, events, host summaries, stdout

Verification: Run the aap-mcp-validator skill with aap-mcp-job-management before proceeding.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• User reports a failed job and wants analysis
• As the first step in the forensic-troubleshooter workflow
• User asks to understand what went wrong with a job

Do NOT use when:

• User wants to execute a job (use execution-risk-analyzer + governed-job-launcher)
• User wants host fact correlation (use host-fact-inspector after this skill)
• User wants resolution recommendations (use resolution-advisor after this skill)

Workflow

Step 1: Consult Troubleshooting Documentation

CRITICAL: Document consultation MUST happen BEFORE any MCP tool invocations.

Document Consultation (REQUIRED - Execute FIRST):

1. Action: Read job-troubleshooting.md using the Read tool to understand event extraction, failure patterns, host summary interpretation, and root cause classification
2. Output to user: "I consulted job-troubleshooting.md which references Red Hat's AAP 2.6 Troubleshooting Guide for failure analysis patterns."

Step 2: Retrieve Job Status

MCP Tool: jobs_retrieve (from aap-mcp-job-management) Parameters:

• id: "<job_id>"

Extract: status, failed, job_type, elapsed, launch_type.

Per job-troubleshooting.md, the status determines the analysis path:

• failed → Analyze events for runner_on_failed
• error → Platform-level failure (check capacity, EE, credentials)
• canceled → Check timeout or manual cancellation

Step 3: Extract Failure Events

MCP Tool: jobs_job_events_list (from aap-mcp-job-management) Parameters:

• id: "<job_id>"
• page_size: 100

Filter for failure-related events:

• runner_on_failed -- task failures (PRIMARY)
• runner_on_unreachable -- host connectivity failures (PRIMARY)
• playbook_on_stats -- final summary

From each failure event, extract:

• host: which host failed
• task: which task failed
• event_data.res.msg: error message
• event_data.task_action: Ansible module
• counter: sequence number for timeline

Step 4: Retrieve Host Summaries

MCP Tool: jobs_job_host_summaries_list (from aap-mcp-job-management) Parameters:

• id: "<job_id>"

Map each host's ok, changed, failures, dark, skipped counts.

Step 5: Classify the Failure

Apply the classification from job-troubleshooting.md:

For each runner_on_failed event, match against the failure patterns in job-troubleshooting.md:

• Pattern 1: Host Unreachable
• Pattern 2: Module Failure (Package Operations)
• Pattern 3: Privilege Escalation Timeout
• Pattern 4: Service Start Failure
• Pattern 5: Template Rendering Error
• Pattern 6: Execution Environment Issue

Step 6: Reconstruct Failure Timeline

Sort events by counter and produce a chronological failure narrative:

1. First failure event (root cause candidate)
2. Subsequent failures (cascade effects)
3. Final stats (scope of impact)

Step 7: Generate Failure Analysis Report

Output format (per job-troubleshooting.md template):

## Job Failure Analysis: Job #[job_id]

**Job Status**: [status]
**Elapsed Time**: [elapsed]s
**Launch Type**: [launch_type]

### Failure Timeline

1. [counter] - Task "[task_name]" on host "[hostname]": [event_type]
   Error: "[error_message]"
   Module: [module_name]
2. [subsequent failure events]

### Host Summary

| Host | OK | Changed | Failed | Unreachable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [host1] | [ok] | [changed] | [failures] | [dark] |

### Preliminary Classification

**Type**: [Platform / Code / Configuration] Issue
**Pattern Match**: [Pattern name from failure patterns reference]
**Evidence**: Per Red Hat's Troubleshooting Guide: "[relevant guidance from job-troubleshooting.md]"
**Root Cause Candidate**: [first failure event analysis]

### Next Steps

- Host fact correlation recommended: [yes/no, with affected hostnames]
- Resolution advisory recommended: [yes/no, with error pattern]

Dependencies

Required MCP Servers

• aap-mcp-job-management - Job data and events

Required MCP Tools

• jobs_retrieve (from job-management) - Job status
• jobs_job_events_list (from job-management) - Event stream
• jobs_job_host_summaries_list (from job-management) - Per-host summary
• jobs_stdout_retrieve (from job-management) - Full stdout (supplementary)

Related Skills

• aap-mcp-validator - Prerequisite validation
• host-fact-inspector - Next step: correlate with host facts
• resolution-advisor - Next step: get resolution recommendations
• execution-summary - Audit trail

Reference Documentation

• job-troubleshooting.md - Event parsing and failure patterns

Example Usage

User: "Job #4451 failed halfway through. Analyze the logs."

Agent:

1. Reads job-troubleshooting.md
2. Reports: "I consulted job-troubleshooting.md which references Red Hat's AAP 2.6 Troubleshooting Guide."
3. Retrieves job #4451 → status: failed
4. Extracts events → finds runner_on_failed on task "Install security package" with ansible.builtin.dnf, msg: "No package matching 'nonexistent-package'"
5. Retrieves host summaries → 1 host with failures=1
6. Classifies: Code Error (Pattern 2: Module Failure - Package Operations)
7. Reports structured analysis with timeline, classification, and next steps