---
title: "ADR-258: A model hints at the cause of a logged error"
manual: "LLM Foundation"
version: "0.43"
permalink: "https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/netresearch/nr-llm:adr-258@0.43"
source: "Adr/Adr258AModelHintsAtTheCauseOfALoggedError.rst"
rendered: "2026-11-04T18:29:17+00:00"
---

# ADR-258: A model hints at the cause of a logged error {#adr-258}

-   *Status:* Accepted
-   *Date:* 2026-11-04
-   *Authors:* Netresearch DTT GmbH

## Context {#context}

[ADR-044](https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/netresearch/nr-llm:adr-044@0.43) gave the assistant `get_last_exception`: an
administrator who asks in the chat gets the newest logged error with its
stack and source, and the model explains it. Outside the chat nothing did:
an administrator on the command line, or one who opens the backend to look
at what failed, had the log and no hint. The gap analysis of 2026-09-23
listed "hints for exceptions by AI, for administrators and on the command
line" as missing.

Three constraints shape it. The hint must not show anyone more than the
person already sees: the log files are readable by whoever runs the CLI and,
in the backend, only by administrators. An exception message sits next to
secrets (connection strings, tokens; [ADR-094](https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/netresearch/nr-llm:adr-094@0.43) classes it
`SECRET_ADJACENT`), and a provider may be allowed less than that. And a
model asked for a cause always names one, so a reader must be able to tell a
hint anchored in the stack from a guess.

## Decision {#decision}

One service, `ExceptionHintService`, two thin surfaces.

-   **What is sent**

    The exception class, the message after the sanitizer that masks
    credentials in URLs, the component, and up to 20 frames as file, line
    and function name. TYPO3's exception handlers log no trace by default;
    for their entries `LogExceptionReader` now takes the class and the
    throw site from the entry's own `exception_class`, `file` and
    `line` keys; that class beats one the message quotes. An entry with no class, no frame and a message the
    provider may not receive is not sent at all. Call
    arguments are cut from each frame (PHP writes argument values into a
    trace unless `zend.exception_ignore_args` is on). No source line is
    sent; `get_last_exception` remains the way to read code with a model.

-   **What the provider may receive**

    The configuration's trust zone decides, through the same ladder the tool
    loop applies (`TrustZoneResolver::ceilingFor()`). Class and frames
    are system diagnostics, the message is secret-adjacent. Below
    `SYSTEM_DIAGNOSTICS` no model is asked and the refusal says why; below
    `SECRET_ADJACENT` the message is withheld and the hint says it was made
    without it. With the default zones this means a hint is asked only of a
    local or privately hosted provider; an operator who wants another one
    moves that provider's zone, which is the documented switch. A
    criteria-mode configuration has no provider of its own and counts as
    external, as it does for the tool loop; name a fixed-model configuration
    instead.

-   **When a hint is a guess**

    The model answers with a cause, a next step and the number of the frame
    the cause sits in. The extension, not the model, labels the hint: it is
    anchored only when the cited frame exists in the entry's stack and lies in
    the project's code (inside the project root, not under `vendor/`,
    `var/` or `typo3temp/`, which hold generated files, and, in a
    classic-mode installation, not under `typo3/sysext/`). Every other hint
    is shown as a guess.

-   **Surfaces**

    `nrllm:exception:hint` (`--index`, `--search`, `--configuration`;
    default configuration otherwise) prints the entry and the hint. It is not
    schedulable: a scheduler task would send every logged error out on a
    timer. The backend module *AI > Operation > Error hints* is
    administrator-only and lists the ten newest entries; a hint is asked for
    per entry by POST, so a page view or a prefetch never sends an error. The
    form posts a key of the entry, not its position, so an error logged in
    between is never sent in its place. The hint action checks the
    administrator again. The module uses the default configuration. The
    call bypasses the answer cache and is attributed as
    `exception_hint` in the usage data.

-   **Not done**

    No hook in TYPO3's exception handlers. A model call while an exception is
    rendered would add a provider's latency and an outbound request to every
    error page, and a failing provider would fail inside the handler.

## Consequences {#consequences}

-   An administrator gets a cause and a next step without opening the chat,
    and can tell an anchored hint from a guess by its heading.
-   On an installation whose providers are all external with default zones,
    both surfaces refuse with the zone named. That is the data-class rule
    applied, not a defect.
-   The failure signature of a regression in the guess rule is a hint shown
    as anchored whose frame is under `vendor/` or missing.