fix(core): suppress empty responses to prevent (Silent) channel messages

[jcenters]

Problem

When an agent returns an empty string (e.g. when intentionally ignoring a read-only crew chat message), streamResponse() was still calling enqueueResponse() with an empty message. Telegram delivers empty messages as (Silent), which shows up as a notification with no content — confusing and noisy for users.

Fix

Added a guard in streamResponse() before enqueueResponse():

if (!responseMessage.trim() && allFiles.length === 0) {
    log('DEBUG', `Empty response suppressed...`);
    return;
}

Empty responses (no text, no files) are now dropped silently at the pipeline level rather than reaching the channel client.

Related

Companion to #220 (chatroom fan-out loop fix). Both issues were discovered together when agents in a crew team began flooding a user's Telegram with status updates and silent messages.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

This PR adds a one-guard early-return in streamResponse() to drop empty responses — ones where both the post-hook message text is blank and no files are attached — before they ever reach enqueueResponse(). This cleanly eliminates the "(Silent)" push-notification noise seen in Telegram and WhatsApp when agents intentionally produce no output (e.g., ignoring a read-only crew chat message).

Key changes:

• Guard is correctly placed after runOutgoingHooks and handleLongResponse, so any hook or transformation that produces an empty result is also covered.
• A DEBUG-level log records the suppression with channel/sender/agent context for observability.
• enqueueResponse and emitEvent('response_ready') are both skipped, which is semantically correct — there is nothing to deliver or report.
• The condition !responseMessage.trim() && allFiles.length === 0 correctly allows file-only messages (empty text but with attachments) to still be delivered.

Confidence Score: 5/5

• This PR is safe to merge — it is a minimal, targeted guard with no side-effects on normal (non-empty) response paths.
• The change is 6 lines, placed at the correct point in the pipeline (after all transformations and hook processing), uses a conservative condition that cannot accidentally suppress messages with content or files, and is clearly motivated by an observable production bug. No existing behaviour for non-empty responses is altered.
• No files require special attention.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
packages/core/src/response.ts	Adds a guard before enqueueResponse() to early-return when both responseMessage is blank and no files are attached, correctly suppressing noisy "(Silent)" Telegram/WhatsApp notifications.

Sequence Diagram

sequenceDiagram
    participant Caller
    participant streamResponse
    participant runOutgoingHooks
    participant handleLongResponse
    participant enqueueResponse
    participant ChannelClient

    Caller->>streamResponse: response (possibly empty)
    streamResponse->>streamResponse: trim & transform
    streamResponse->>streamResponse: collectFiles
    streamResponse->>runOutgoingHooks: finalResponse
    runOutgoingHooks-->>streamResponse: hookedResponse + metadata
    streamResponse->>handleLongResponse: hookedResponse + outboundFiles
    handleLongResponse-->>streamResponse: responseMessage + allFiles

    alt responseMessage is blank AND allFiles is empty
        streamResponse->>streamResponse: log DEBUG "Empty response suppressed"
        streamResponse-->>Caller: return (early exit, nothing sent)
    else has content or files
        streamResponse->>enqueueResponse: channel, sender, message, files...
        enqueueResponse->>ChannelClient: deliver message
        streamResponse->>streamResponse: emitEvent("response_ready")
    end

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_{Last reviewed commit: f70f7d4}