logger: fix HandlePanic to actually recover deferred panics

[neddp]

Summary

logger.HandlePanic does not recover panics when used as documented (defer logger.HandlePanic(tag)). The panic escapes unhandled: the intended Panic: ... log line and os.Exit(2) never run, and the process instead dies with a raw Go runtime trace. asyncLogger.HandlePanic has the same problem (and its FlushTimeout before exit never runs either).

Root cause

Go only honours recover() when it is called directly by the function that was deferred — not by any function that deferred function calls. The current code delegates recover() to a shared helper:

func (l *logger) recoverPanic(tag string) (didPanic bool) {
	if e := recover(); e != nil { // recover() lives here
		...
		return true
	}
	return false
}

func (l *logger) HandlePanic(tag string) { // <- the deferred frame
	if l.recoverPanic(tag) {               // recover() runs one frame too deep
		os.Exit(2)
	}
}

With defer logger.HandlePanic(tag), the deferred frame is HandlePanic, but recover() is called from recoverPanic. The runtime's recover check requires the caller of recover() to be the deferred frame, so it returns nil, recoverPanic returns false, os.Exit(2) is skipped, and the panic propagates.

Fix

Call recover() directly inside each deferred function and keep only the formatting in a helper that receives the already-recovered value:

func (l *logger) HandlePanic(tag string) {
	if e := recover(); e != nil {
		l.logPanic(tag, e)
		osExit(2)
	}
}

asyncLogger.HandlePanic is fixed the same way and still flushes before exit. An osExit seam (defaulting to os.Exit) lets the new tests assert the exit behaviour without terminating the test process.

Tests

Added internal tests (logger/handle_panic_internal_test.go) covering both the sync and async loggers: a deferred HandlePanic must recover the panic, log Panic: ..., and call os.Exit(2). The tests fail against the previous delegated implementation and pass with this change. Existing suite passes under -race.

History / impact

The regression dates to the async logger refactor (commit f8bb60f0, 2016), which extracted the recover logic into the shared helper. It went unnoticed because every caller uses HandlePanic to log-and-exit at a top-level defer: both the fixed and broken paths exit with status 2 and print a panic trace to stderr, so the only observable difference was the log format (and the loss of structured logging / async flush on panic).

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

• Configuration used: Organization UI
• Review profile: ASSERTIVE
• Plan: Advanced
• Run ID: 237c6115-a50f-42b0-b414-b8e63bcf9763

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1561254 and e73a51f.

📒 Files selected for processing: 5

• logger/async.go
• logger/handle_panic_fixture/main.go
• logger/handle_panic_test.go
• logger/logger.go
• logger/logger_suite_test.go

Included review availability: This review used your included allowance. Your plan provides up to 1 included review per hour; 0 remain after this review.

Walkthrough

HandlePanic now calls recover() directly and logs recovered values through logPanic, which formats the value and includes a stack trace. The asynchronous logger retains its 30-second flush and exit-status-2 behavior. A fixture and subprocess tests cover panic and no-panic execution with synchronous and asynchronous logging.

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to e73a5

The panic-handling change is mergeable after normal checks; no actionable issue remains in the supplied review evidence.

Pre-merge checks: 4 · 1

Failed checks: 1 warning

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage		Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 2 functions across 6 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

Passed checks: 4 passed

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check		The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: fixing HandlePanic so deferred panics recover correctly.
Description check		The description is directly related to the changes. It explains the recovery bug, the implementation fix, and the integration tests for synchronous and asynchronous loggers.
Linked Issues check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The implementation correctly addresses Go’s direct-recovery requirement and includes focused regression coverage.

0 open findings

What changed in this PR

Fixes panic recovery for synchronous and asynchronous loggers by calling recover() directly in deferred handlers.

Changes:

• Extracts panic formatting into logPanic.
• Adds a testable osExit seam.
• Adds coverage for recovery, logging, async flushing, and exit behavior.

File	Description
logger/​logger.go	Corrects synchronous panic recovery and exit handling.
logger/​async.go	Corrects async recovery while preserving flush-before-exit.
logger/​handle_panic_internal_test.go	Tests panic and non-panic behavior for both logger types.

🧠 Review effort: Balanced

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[selzoc]

This seam is a bit weird - I think we could use some gexec to make it better so that we don't have to insert it into production code. We could either compile a small fixture that panics and check the exit code like in #148, or use gexec to launch a sub-process in which we check the exit code.

[neddp]

Hi @selzoc,

Thanks for the review!

I was unsure how to handle this correctly. I followed the approach in the referenced PR and I think it looks better now.

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The focused recovery fix and regression tests have no identified blocking issues; tests were not executed during this review.

No open issues 🎉

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[selzoc]

Nice! I would ask that you update the PR description, which still described the earlier approach.