GitHub Apps like Copilot SWE Agent set GITHUB_ACTOR to a value (e.g.
"Copilot") that is neither a valid GitHub user nor ends with "[bot]".
This caused two independent crashes:
1. checkWritePermissions (permissions.ts): called the collaborator
permission API which returns 404 "is not a user" for non-user actors.
2. checkHumanActor (actor.ts): called the Users API first, which 404s,
before ever reaching the allowed_bots check.
Fix both by:
- Checking allowed_bots BEFORE making API calls, so known bots skip the
API entirely.
- In permissions.ts, catching "is not a user" 404 errors and falling
back to the allowed_bots list instead of crashing.
- In actor.ts, catching 404 errors and providing a clear error message
telling the user to add the bot to allowed_bots.
Closes#900, #903, #1018, #1133
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
