fix(coderd): prevent idle state from showing for paused/errored tasks

mafredri · mafredri · commit b3b392922e38 · 2025-11-25T18:30:50.000Z
Previously, the deriveTaskCurrentState function would return app status
(including "idle" state) for all tasks, regardless of their status. This
caused stopped or errored tasks to incorrectly appear in the "Waiting for
input" tab if they had an idle app status.

Now, the function only returns app status for tasks with "active" status.
For paused or errored tasks, the function returns nil or an appropriate
state based on their actual condition.

This fix is implemented in the backend state machine rather than filtering
on the frontend, ensuring the task state is semantically correct at the
source.

---

🤖 This change was written by Claude Code using Coder Tasks and reviewed by a human 🏂
diff --git a/coderd/aitasks.go b/coderd/aitasks.go
@@ -341,11 +341,14 @@ func deriveTaskCurrentState(
 ) *codersdk.TaskStateEntry {
 	var currentState *codersdk.TaskStateEntry
 
-	// Ignore 'latest app status' if it is older than the latest build and the
-	// latest build is a 'start' transition. This ensures that you don't show a
-	// stale app status from a previous build. For stop transitions, there is
-	// still value in showing the latest app status.
-	if ws.LatestAppStatus != nil {
+	// Only use app status for active tasks. For paused or errored tasks,
+	// we should not report app status (like "idle") since the workspace
+	// is not actually running and waiting for input.
+	if dbTask.Status == database.TaskStatusActive && ws.LatestAppStatus != nil {
+		// Ignore 'latest app status' if it is older than the latest build and the
+		// latest build is a 'start' transition. This ensures that you don't show a
+		// stale app status from a previous build. For stop transitions, there is
+		// still value in showing the latest app status.
 		if ws.LatestBuild.Transition != codersdk.WorkspaceTransitionStart || ws.LatestAppStatus.CreatedAt.After(ws.LatestBuild.CreatedAt) {
 			currentState = &codersdk.TaskStateEntry{
 				Timestamp: ws.LatestAppStatus.CreatedAt,
