clawsweeper re-review fails for repos with default branch of 'master' instead of 'main'

[kmahone]

See this run:
https://github.com/openclaw/clawsweeper/actions/runs/26900824457/job/79352427381

Run set -euo pipefail
fatal: couldn't find remote ref main
Warning: Cached target repository fetch failed; rebuilding cache.
Cloning into bare repository 'openclaw-windows-node-cache.git'...
fatal: Remote branch main not found in upstream origin
Error: Process completed with exit code 128.

This was triggered from this PR:
openclaw/openclaw-windows-node#671

The openclaw-windows-node repo has a default branch of 'master' and does not have a 'main' branch.

The initial review from clawsweeper worked correctly. But the re-review requests failed.

[clawsweeper]

Codex review: keeping this open for maintainer follow-up; there is still a little grit to resolve. Reviewed June 3, 2026, 6:25 PM ET / 22:25 UTC.

Summary
This issue is still necessary: current main preserves the target default branch in the webhook intake, but the comment-router re-review path drops it before dispatching the actual item review, so the sweep workflow falls back to main and can fail before checkout on master-default repositories.

Reproducibility: yes. It is source-reproducible without running the live workflow: the branch is present in webhook intake, omitted from the comment-router re-review dispatch, and then sweep.yml defaults the missing branch to main before cloning.

Next step
This is a narrow source-backed repair candidate with clear files, no product decision, and no linked implementation PR.

Review details

Best possible solution:

Thread the known target default branch through repair-comment-router.yml, comment-router config, and the clawsweeper_item re-review dispatch, with regression coverage for a non-main branch target.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Yes. It is source-reproducible without running the live workflow: the branch is present in webhook intake, omitted from the comment-router re-review dispatch, and then sweep.yml defaults the missing branch to main before cloning.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Yes. The narrow maintainable fix is to preserve target_branch across the existing re-review dispatch chain and add tests for a master or trunk default-branch target.

AGENTS.md: found and applied where relevant.

Remaining risk / open question:

• The repair should preserve a safe fallback for manual or scheduled dispatches that genuinely lack a target branch, so existing main-default repositories keep working.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 74f63a090af7.

Label changes

Label changes:

• add P1: A valid re-review command can fail before checkout for target repositories whose default branch is not main, blocking real ClawSweeper review automation.
• add impact:other: The issue affects ClawSweeper command routing and targeted review workflow execution, which is maintainer-visible automation behavior outside the more specific impact labels.
• add issue-rating: 🦞 diamond lobster: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:source-repro: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:queueable-fix: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:fix-shape-clear: Current issue advisory state selects this label.

Label justifications:

• P1: A valid re-review command can fail before checkout for target repositories whose default branch is not main, blocking real ClawSweeper review automation.
• impact:other: The issue affects ClawSweeper command routing and targeted review workflow execution, which is maintainer-visible automation behavior outside the more specific impact labels.

Evidence reviewed

Acceptance criteria:

• pnpm run test:unit
• pnpm run test:repair
• pnpm run check

What I checked:

• Re-review dispatch drops the target branch: dispatchClawSweeperReview builds the clawsweeper_item repository dispatch with target_repo, item fields, and status fields, but it does not include target_branch. (src/repair/comment-router.ts:1916, 74f63a090af7)
• Comment router workflow ignores the branch payload: The clawsweeper_comment workflow reads target_repo, item number, comment id, status id, and force-reprocess fields from the dispatch payload, but does not pass target_branch into repair:comment-router. (.github/workflows/repair-comment-router.yml:177, 74f63a090af7)
• Sweep checkout defaults missing branch to main: The event review workflow resolves target_branch from client_payload.target_branch || 'main' and then uses that branch for the cache fetch and clone, matching the reported Remote branch main not found failure mode when the payload omits the branch. (.github/workflows/sweep.yml:179, 74f63a090af7)
• Webhook intake already has the right branch: comment-webhook.ts derives the target branch from repository.default_branch and includes it in the initial clawsweeper_comment dispatch, so the loss happens after webhook intake rather than at the original GitHub event classification. (src/repair/comment-webhook.ts:196, 74f63a090af7)
• Reported target is master-default: The target repository named in the report advertises HEAD as refs/heads/master, and the same probe did not return a refs/heads/main ref.
• History provenance: git blame ties the current re-review dispatch shape and sweep checkout fallback to commit f2ec021eb55c7c3305b174f7ebe5f5af89f9dac9, which introduced the relevant comment-router, webhook, and workflow surfaces now involved in this path. (src/repair/comment-router.ts:1916, f2ec021eb55c)

Likely related people:

• brokemac79: Blame shows this person introduced the current comment-router dispatch, webhook branch forwarding, and sweep checkout branch fallback in commit f2ec021eb55c7c3305b174f7ebe5f5af89f9dac9, and later worked on re-review command parsing. (role: introduced behavior and recent area contributor; confidence: high; commits: f2ec021eb55c, 485f71abc664, 556268dff3d9; files: src/repair/comment-router.ts, src/repair/comment-webhook.ts, .github/workflows/sweep.yml)
• Tak Hoffman: Recent commits changed command acknowledgement/status handling and the event checkout workflow area, which are adjacent to the failing re-review route. (role: recent adjacent contributor; confidence: medium; commits: c01469876a85, 54422d977482, 1a74c4163ebf; files: src/repair/comment-router.ts, src/repair/comment-webhook.ts, .github/workflows/sweep.yml)

How this review workflow works

• ClawSweeper keeps one durable marker-backed review comment per issue or PR.
• Re-runs edit this comment so the latest verdict, findings, and automation markers stay together instead of adding duplicate bot comments.
• A fresh review can be triggered by eligible @clawsweeper re-review comments, exact-item GitHub events, scheduled/background review runs, or manual workflow dispatch.
• PR/issue authors and users with repository write access can comment @clawsweeper re-review or @clawsweeper re-run on an open PR or issue to request a fresh review only.
• Maintainers can also comment @clawsweeper review to request a fresh review only.
• Fresh-review commands do not start repair, autofix, rebase, CI repair, or automerge.
• Maintainer-only repair and merge flows require explicit commands such as @clawsweeper autofix, @clawsweeper automerge, @clawsweeper fix ci, or @clawsweeper address review.
• Maintainers can comment @clawsweeper explain to ask for more context, or @clawsweeper stop to stop active automation.