`altimate_core_validate` returns "unknown error" with no actionable details (1,200+ failures)

[anandgupta42]

Problem

The altimate_core_validate tool fails with "unknown error" and error class "unknown" — providing no useful information for debugging. This is the 5th most common tool failure overall.

Scale

1,208 total failures in the last 7 days across all versions.

CLI Version	Occurrences	Error Message
0.5.2	601	unknown error
0.5.7	391	unknown error
0.5.3	171	unknown error
0.5.5	18	unknown error

On dev branches where error propagation was improved (fix/ai-5975-tool-error-propagation), the actual errors surfaced properly:

• "No schema provided. Provide schema_context or schema_path so table/column references can be resolved."
• "Table ? not found"
• "Validation failed: Table 'fact_inventory' not found"
• "Validation failed: Syntax error: sql parser error: Expected: ), found: . at Line: 8, Column: 10"

Root cause

The released versions (0.5.2 through 0.5.7) are catching exceptions from altimate_core_validate and replacing them with a generic "unknown error" string. The fix branch (ai-5975) appears to address this but hasn't shipped to a release yet.

Impact

• Users see a useless error message and can't understand why validation failed
• The agent can't adapt its behavior based on the error (e.g., providing schema context when it's missing)
• 1,200+ failures in a week that could have been recoverable if the error was surfaced

Suggested fix

1. Ship the error propagation fix from the ai-5975 branch to a release
2. Ensure all altimate_core_* tool errors propagate the original error message and a meaningful error_class
3. For the common case of "No schema provided", consider having the tool auto-resolve schema context or return a structured error the agent can act on