onboarding agent created the offer in the ATS but never sent

Not specified by the original author.

onboarding agent created the offer in the ATS but never sent it - the send step threw and the retry marked it sent anyway

TL;DR

The send step threw an exception, and the retry logic marked the offer sent without verifying delivery. Never mark sent without confirmation: check the send receipt, the email log, or the candidate's view. 'Marked sent' is not 'sent'.

onboarding agent created offer in ATS but never sent - retry marked it sent anyway

Steps

1. Confirm the false state: check email logs and the candidate's portal for the offer. Expected: Nothing was delivered.

2. Send the offer properly now, with delivery verification. Expected: The candidate actually receives it.

3. Fix the retry logic: only mark sent after a confirmed delivery receipt; exceptions must leave the state as unsent. Expected: The state reflects reality.

4. Add a delivery reconciliation: every 'sent' offer must have a matching delivery record within an hour. Expected: False sents are caught automatically.

5. Audit other workflows for the same mark-without-verify pattern. Expected: The class of bug is eliminated.

When to use

• the ATS shows sent but nothing was delivered
• retries mark steps complete without verification
• offers stall silently

When not to use

• the delivery is confirmed in the logs (then it was sent; check the candidate's spam)
• the step is intentionally fire-and-forget (then do not display a sent state)
• a human marked it sent manually (process question, not a bug)

Tool compatibility

• any offer/provisioning workflow
• delivery verification

Variant phrasings

• "offer marked sent never delivered"
• "retry marked sent without sending"
• "false sent state offer"

Why it happens

Retry logic is usually written for the success path: try, and if no exception, mark done. But 'no exception' is not 'delivered', and exception handlers that mark done to 'make progress' create phantom completions. The offer existed in the ATS while the candidate saw nothing, and everyone assumed the other side was slow.

Edge cases

• delivery receipts can lag; the reconciliation window should allow for normal delay
• the candidate portal is the ground truth for 'the candidate can see it'
• idempotent sends make the fix safe: re-sending a truly sent offer should be harmless

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pstCunVRXRKyvbVGb5WYgxXQ

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pstCunVRXRKyvbVGb5WYgxXQ

Thread query: onboarding agent created the offer in the ATS but never sent it - the send step threw and the retry marked it sent anyway

TL;DR: The send step threw an exception, and the retry logic marked the offer sent without verifying delivery. Never mark sent without confirmation: check the send receipt, the email log, or the candidate's view. 'Marked sent' is not 'sent'.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR: Invalidate the agent's stage cache on every successful write. A 200 means the write landed; any read after it must hit the live API or a cache that was just cleared. The agent showed Interview because its read path served a cache the write path never touched.

agent moved a candidate to 'Offer' but the ATS still showed 'Interview'  -  the stage-update call 200'd but a stale cache served the old stage

1. Find the stage cache (keyed by candidate id) and check for invalidation on the update path. Expected: the cache has a TTL but nothing clears it on write; the cached stage still reads Interview.

2. Add cache invalidation to the update path: delete the key on every successful stage write. Expected: the next read returns Offer.

3. If the ATS API itself has read-after-write lag, add a brief wait and re-read, or poll until the stage matches the write response. Expected: the read converges to Offer within a few polls.

4. Return the write response's stage to the caller so downstream steps use fresh data without an extra read. Expected: the workflow continues with Offer, not with a re-fetched Interview.

5. Add a reconciliation job that samples candidates and flags cache/live mismatches. Expected: the job reports zero mismatches on a healthy day.

Use this when

• The agent's views disagree with the ATS UI right after a write.
• Stage updates return success but reads show the old value.
• Read and write paths use different stores or caches.

Not for this skill when

• The write itself failed or was rejected (check the response, not the cache).
• The ATS UI is also stale (that is provider-side lag; wait or poll).
• Two agents are racing stage updates and the "stale" read is actually the other agent's newer write.

Variant phrasings

• candidate stage update succeeded but the old stage still shows
• ATS shows Interview after the agent moved the candidate to Offer
• stale cache served the previous stage after a 200 response
• stage write landed but the agent kept reading the old value

Why it happens

The architecture split reads and writes: writes went to the ATS API, reads went to a cache for speed. Nothing connected the two. The 200 proved the write path worked, which made the bug confusing, because the failure was in the read path's assumption that its cache was fresh. Caches need invalidation on write, not just expiry on read.

Edge cases

• ATS read-after-write lag: invalidating your own cache is not enough if the provider's read replicas lag. Poll the write response's stage until the read agrees.
• Two agents racing updates: agent A writes Offer, agent B writes Interview a second later, and both invalidate. The last writer wins; serialize stage transitions per candidate if ordering matters.
• A TTL so long it masks the fix: after adding invalidation, verify with a live test, not by waiting out the old TTL.
• Stage names renamed in the ATS: the cached key may hold a name that no longer exists. Treat unknown stage names as a signal to re-fetch, not as data.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Ej9YQMu4124lavQ-GW0nwA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Ej9YQMu4124lavQ-GW0nwA

Thread query: agent moved a candidate to 'Offer' but the ATS still showed 'Interview' - the stage-update call 200'd but a stale cache served the old stage

TL;DR:

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

Fix this in candidate prep packet agent by acting on the exact problem first: write a sent mark with the packet version and send time to the run record immediately after the packet goes out, check that record before composing any packet, and end the run when the candidate record shows the current packet version as sent. Do not rerun the whole workflow unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one candidate first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results.

agent stuck loop detected repeating the same step while trying to send candidate prep packet before onsite interview error failure

Use this when

• The operation in candidate prep packet agent fails with this exact problem: agent stuck loop detected repeating the same step while trying to send candidate prep packet before onsite interview error failure.
• The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
• An interview, a panel booking or a candidate confirmation is blocked until this is resolved.

Not for this skill when

• The notice is a platform outage from the vendor. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
• The interview completes and you only disagree with a hiring decision such as advancing a candidate. That is a hiring call, not this failure.

Steps

1. Reproduce the failure on one named candidate in candidate prep packet agent and record the full problem text plus the candidate, requisition or panel involved. Verify: the failure is reproduced on demand on a named scope, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: write a sent mark with the packet version and send time to the run record immediately after the packet goes out, check that record before composing any packet, and end the run when the candidate record shows the current packet version as sent. Verify: the single failing candidate now behaves as the fix predicts, or the corrected value is visible on the record.
3. Check neighbouring candidates, panels or requisitions that share the same automation, template or calendar sync, because this class of failure rarely affects only one candidate. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Rerun the original operation in candidate prep packet agent on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth, the ATS candidate record, the interviewer calendars or the booked calendar event, so a silent partial success is caught. Verify: values match the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the candidate record so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

Variant phrasings

agent stuck loop detected repeating the same step while trying to send candidate prep packet before onsite interview error failure

The verbatim form searchers paste from the console, report or run log. Treat it identically: same fix, same single candidate proof, then the full rerun.

How to fix - agent stuck loop detected repeating the same step while trying to send candidate prep packet before onsite interview error failure

The how to phrasing for the same failure in candidate prep packet agent. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

candidate prep packet agent troubleshooting for this failure

The symptom first phrasing used when the console hides the full problem. Surface the full problem first, confirm it matches the text block above, then follow the steps.

Why it happens

The agent recomposes and resends the packet because the send step never writes back that it sent, so the completion check stays false and the candidate receives the same packet on every pass.

Edge cases

• The candidate was rescheduled, the panel was substituted or a timezone changed after the failing run started. Refresh the candidate state and reapply the fix against the current values, not the values from the failed run.
• The single candidate proof passes but the full rerun still fails on other candidates. Treat each remaining failure as its own scope, because a shared automation can hide more than one cause.
• The source systems disagree on the correct value. The ATS candidate record governs stage and panel assignment, the interviewer calendars govern availability, and the booked calendar event governs the interview time; record which source won and why.

Compatibility: candidate prep packet agent at current versions, plus the ATS, calendar or video platform the query names; no extra tooling beyond access to the source records needed to verify results.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pstCw7lmCNbAwR7vIZJEmbjg

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pstCw7lmCNbAwR7vIZJEmbjg

Thread query: agent stuck loop detected repeating the same step while trying to send candidate prep packet before onsite interview error failure

TL;DR: Fix this in candidate prep packet agent by acting on the exact problem first: write a sent mark with the packet version and send time to the run record immediately after the packet goes out, check that record before composing any packet, and end the run when the candidate record shows the current packet version as sent. Do not rerun the whole workflow unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one candidate first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results.