User reported the canvas threw a generic "API GET /workspaces: 500
{auth check failed}" error when local Postgres + Redis were both
down. Two problems:
1. The error code (500) and message ("auth check failed") said
nothing useful. The actual condition was "platform can't reach
its datastore to validate your token" — a Service Unavailable
class, not Internal Server Error.
2. The canvas had no way to distinguish infra-down from a real
auth bug, so it rendered the raw API string in the same
generic-error overlay it uses for everything.
Fix in two layers:
Server (wsauth_middleware.go):
- New abortAuthLookupError helper centralises all three sites
that previously returned `500 {"error":"auth check failed"}`
when HasAnyLiveTokenGlobal or orgtoken.Validate hit a DB error.
- Now returns 503 + structured body
`{"error": "...", "code": "platform_unavailable"}`. 503 is
the correct semantic ("retry shortly, infra is unavailable")
and the code field is the contract the canvas reads.
- Body deliberately excludes the underlying DB error string —
production hostnames / connection-string fragments must not
leak into a user-visible error toast.
Canvas (api.ts):
- New PlatformUnavailableError class. api.ts inspects 503
responses for the platform_unavailable code and throws the
typed error instead of the generic "API GET /…: 503 …"
message. Generic 503s (upstream-busy, etc.) keep the legacy
path so existing busy-retry UX isn't disrupted.
Canvas (page.tsx):
- New PlatformDownDiagnostic component renders when the
initial hydration catches PlatformUnavailableError.
Surfaces the actual condition with operator-actionable
copy ("brew services start postgresql@14 / redis") +
pointer to the platform log + a Reload button.
Tests:
- Go: TestAdminAuth_DatastoreError_Returns503PlatformUnavailable
pins the response shape (status, code field, no DB-error leak)
- Canvas: 5 tests for PlatformUnavailableError classification —
typed throw on 503+code match, generic-Error fallback for
503-without-code (upstream busy), 500 stays generic, non-JSON
body falls back to generic.
1015 canvas tests + full Go middleware suite pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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