data-qa→analyst default-agent migration warning is invisible to normal users (print-gated) and recurs each start

[anandgupta42]

Summary

PR #1239 removed the data-qa agent and added a safe migration: a persisted default_agent: "data-qa" now falls back to analyst instead of throwing (verified on main, agent.ts::defaultInfo(), with regression tests). The fallback behavior is correct and tested. This issue tracks the UX polish flagged by two review threads on #1239 that were not blocking and merged open.

The gap

The migration's "one-time warning" is effectively invisible to a normal user:

• The warning is emitted via the fork's Log shim (src/altimate/util/log.ts), whose shouldLog gates on printEnabled() — output only appears when OPENCODE_PRINT_LOGS / ALTIMATE_PRINT_LOGS is explicitly set. That is off by default for normal CLI runs and deliberately off for the in-process TUI server.
• So an upgrading user whose config sets default_agent: "data-qa" is silently rerouted to analyst with nothing telling them their configured agent changed.
• The on-disk config is never rewritten, so the substitution recurs on every start — it is not, from the user's perspective, a true one-time notice.

Suggested fix (either or both)

• Surface the notice through a channel that reaches interactive sessions (a session/toast notification), not the print-gated stderr logger.
• And/or persist the migrated value back into config so the substitution happens once and the config becomes self-consistent.

Severity

UX polish on an already-safe fallback — not a functional regression. The user is correctly routed; they're just not told. Low priority.

Source: review threads on #1239 (agent.ts:618/619, chatgpt-codex-connector P2 + cubic-dev-ai P3).

[anandgupta42]

Closing as unnecessary — the scenario this tracks cannot occur for any real user.

data-qa was never in a released build:

• Latest release v0.10.0 was cut 2026-09-02 10:14Z.
• data-qa merged to main 2026-09-03 00:31Z (refactor: split builder prompt into invariant core + named packs (byte-identical assembly) + opt-in data-qa profile #1217) — ~14h after v0.10.0.
• data-qa was removed 2026-09-04 06:51Z (refactor: drop the data-qa agent, make analyst the data-question agent #1239), with no release cut in between.

So the agent existed only on main for ~30 hours and shipped to no one. For the migration path (default_agent: "data-qa" → analyst) to fire for a real user, they'd need a released binary containing data-qa (none exists), plus the opt-in ALTIMATE_DATA_QA_PROFILE flag, plus default_agent: "data-qa" persisted in config. That combination is unreachable.

The migration + fallback code on main (from #1239) is harmless defensive handling and can stay, but there's no user-facing warning-visibility gap to fix because no user can reach the code path. Closing.