use_sticky_comment: review text captured in result but never posted as PR comment

[viiveek83]

Description

When using use_sticky_comment: true on pull_request events, Claude runs successfully and produces a complete review in the SDK result field, but the action never posts it as a PR comment. The action saves the result to a log file, revokes the app token, and exits — skipping the sticky comment posting step entirely.

Environment

• Action version: Both @v1 (SHA 5d0cc74, SDK 0.2.73) and pinned SHA 26ec041 (SDK 0.2.70)
• Runner: Self-hosted (arc-runner-set)
• Trigger: pull_request → reusable workflow (workflow_call)
• App token: OIDC exchange succeeds, claude[bot] app token obtained

Workflow Configuration

Reusable workflow called from:

# Caller
jobs:
  claude-review:
    uses: OurOrg/shared-config/.github/workflows/claude-code-review-reusable.yml@master
    with:
      shared_config_path: '.claude/shared'
    secrets:
      anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
      gh_submodule_token: ${{ secrets.GH_SUBMODULE_TOKEN }}

Reusable workflow step:

- uses: anthropics/claude-code-action@v1
  with:
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.anthropic_api_key }}
    use_sticky_comment: true
    prompt: |
      Please review this pull request...
      Write your review as your response. It will be automatically posted as a PR comment.
      Do NOT use any tool to post comments yourself.
    claude_args: --model claude-sonnet-4-6 --allowed-tools "Read,Grep,Glob,Bash(git diff:*),Bash(git log:*),Bash(git show:*),Bash(gh pr diff:*),Bash(gh pr view:*)"

Evidence

Enabled show_full_output: true to capture Claude's full response. Here's what happens:

1. App token obtained successfully

OIDC token successfully obtained
Exchanging OIDC token for app token...
App token successfully obtained
Using GITHUB_TOKEN from OIDC

2. Claude produces a complete review

{
  "type": "result",
  "subtype": "success",
  "is_error": false,
  "duration_ms": 147479,
  "num_turns": 20,
  "result": "<!-- claude-code-review -->\n🤖 **Applying Capsule Code Review guidelines**...\n\n## ⚠️ Concerns (2)\n\n### 1. DRY violation...\n### 2. Hardcoded SAME_DAY_MAX_RETRIES...\n\n## 💡 Suggestions (1)\n...",
  "stop_reason": "end_turn",
  "total_cost_usd": 1.22
}

The result field contains the full review with <!-- claude-code-review --> marker, concerns, suggestions — exactly what should be posted as a sticky comment.

3. Action immediately exits without posting

After the SDK result, the action log shows:

Log saved to /home/runner/_work/_temp/claude-execution-output.json
Set session_id: b73b5b7e-ae73-46b2-b597-6b70cecbee4f
## curl -X DELETE ... /installation/token   ← revokes app token
Post job cleanup.

No GitHub API call to create or update a PR comment. The action goes straight from saving the log to revoking the token.

What We Tried

1. @v1 (SHA 5d0cc74, SDK 0.2.73) — no comment
2. Pinned to SHA 26ec041 (SDK 0.2.70) — no comment
3. Added classify_inline_comments: 'false' — no comment
4. Multiple re-runs across 2 different repos — no comment

What DID Work Previously

The same workflow with the same configuration posted claude[bot] review comments successfully on March 10-11 using SHA 26ec041. Multiple PRs received reviews. Something changed between March 11 and March 13 that broke it, but pinning to the exact same SHA doesn't fix it.

Possibly Related

• Issue comment workflow: Claude runs but doesn't post comments to issues #891 — Same symptom (runs but doesn't post) for issues
• Not Updating Pull Request Comments #602 — Not updating PR comments
• Sticky comment for review mode #419 — Sticky comment for review mode
• Claude GitHub App reacts with eyes emoji but never posts review (Max plan) #1044 — Claude reacts with eyes emoji but never posts review

Expected Behavior

The action should post Claude's result text as a sticky comment on the PR using the <!-- claude-code-review --> marker.

Actual Behavior

The action captures the review text but never makes a GitHub API call to create/update the PR comment.

[cdrews]

Confirming this issue also affects non-sticky-comment mode on issue_comment events.

With show_full_output: true, we can see Claude produces a complete review in the result field (12 turns, detailed security review), but the action never posts it as a PR comment. The output JSON contains the full result, No buffered inline comments is logged, and the action exits without posting.

We attempted a workaround by adding a step to extract the result from the claude-execution-output.json and post via gh pr comment, which partially works -- but the underlying issue is that the action's own comment-posting logic is broken.

Action version: v1.0.72 (SHA cd77b50), Claude Code version: 2.1.76