fix(core): Generate title once there's enough user context

[Cadiac]

Summary

Makes us generate the title only after we have a bit of context - so if user sends message "hey", the title isn't immediately generated, but then on the second message once a bit of user context exists the title generation happens.

This should make the titles a bit more accurate, and we can later tune what is considered a trivial message.

Related Linear tickets, Github issues, and Community forum posts

Review / Merge checklist

• I have seen this code, I have run this code, and I take responsibility for this code.
• PR title and summary are descriptive. (conventions)
• Docs updated or follow-up ticket created.
• Tests included.
• PR Labeled with Backport to Beta, Backport to Stable, or Backport to v1 (if the PR is an urgent fix that needs to be backported)

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 3 files

Architecture diagram

sequenceDiagram
    participant Service as InstanceAiService
    participant Memory as Conversation Memory
    participant TitleGen as Title Generation Logic
    participant LLM as LLM Provider
    participant DB as Thread Metadata

    Note over Service,DB: Title Generation Flow (Post-Message)

    Service->>DB: Check if titleRefined is true
    opt Title not yet refined
        Service->>Memory: recall(threadId, last 5 messages)
        Memory-->>Service: Message list

        Service->>Service: CHANGED: Concat all user messages into single string
        
        alt No user messages found
            Service-->>Service: Abort
        else User text exists
            Service->>TitleGen: generateTitleFromMessage(combinedText)
            
            TitleGen->>TitleGen: isTrivialMessage(text)
            
            alt NEW: Message is trivial (e.g. "hey", "hi there")
                TitleGen-->>Service: Return null
                Note right of TitleGen: Defer generation until more context
            else Message has substance
                TitleGen->>LLM: generateText()
                LLM-->>TitleGen: Refined Title
                TitleGen-->>Service: Return Title
                
                Service->>DB: Update title and set titleRefined: true
            end
        end
    end

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 16.66667% with 5 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
...cli/src/modules/instance-ai/instance-ai.service.ts	0.00%	5 Missing ⚠️

📢 Thoughts on this report? Let us know!

[github-actions]

Instance AI Workflow Eval Results

8/8 built | 11/27 passed (40%)

Workflow	Build	Passed
Create a workflow that handles contact form submissions via a webhook.	✅	4/5
Get all the Linear issues created in the last 2 weeks. Filter them for	✅	1/5
Every day, get the posts made in the past day on 3 different Slack cha	✅	3/5
Create a form that collects: name, email, company, and interest level	✅	2/2
Every day, fetch all open GitHub issues from repository 'acme-corp/bac	✅	0/2
Create a workflow that receives webhook notifications with a JSON body	✅	0/3
Fetch the latest posts from the JSONPlaceholder API (GET https://jsonp	✅	1/3
Every hour, check the current weather for London, New York, and Tokyo	✅	0/2

Failure details

partial-action-failure [builder_issue]

The Telegram Notification node failed with 'Bad request - please check your parameters' (triggered by the mock returning {ok: false, error_code: 400, description: 'Bad Request: chat not found'}). This

happy-path [builder_issue]

The workflow fails to complete. Several critical issues prevent the checklist criteria from being met:

1. Framework issue (empty trigger): The pre-analysis flags a FRAMEWORK ISSUE — Phase 1 retur

multi-team-creator [builder_issue]

The workflow failed to produce any cross-team report. The Filter Cross-Team Issues node produced no output because its code contains a critical builder issue: it only maps each creator to a single 'ho

unknown-creator [builder_issue]

The Filter Cross-Team Issues node produced no output at all — not even Alice's issues. The node's code correctly skips Dave (unknown creator, not in displayNameToEmail), but Alice's issues are also dr

api-error [builder_issue]

The workflow crashed with an unhandled error when the Linear API returned a 401 authentication error. The error 'Authentication required. Please provide a valid Linear API key.' propagated as a workfl

channel-not-found [builder_issue]

The workflow crashed when 'Get #product Messages' received a channel_not_found error. There is no error handling (e.g., a 'Continue on Error' setting, a try/catch branch, or an IF node to check for er

insufficient-permissions [builder_issue]

The workflow crashed when 'Get #product Messages' returned a Slack 'not_in_channel' error. The workflow error propagated and halted execution entirely — 'Aggregate #general', 'Aggregate #engineering',

happy-path [builder_issue]

The workflow failed to execute. The 'Split Issues' node has a builder issue: the 'fieldToSplitOut' parameter is empty (required field 'Fields To Split Out' is not configured). This caused the executio

no-bugs [builder_issue]

The workflow failed to execute cleanly. The 'Split Issues' node has a builder misconfiguration — the required 'Fields To Split Out' parameter is empty. This caused the execution to fail with the error

high-priority [builder_issue]

The Route by Level switch node correctly matched the 'high' level condition and produced output on its first output branch. However, the connections JSON shows that 'Route by Level' has an empty 'main

medium-priority [builder_issue]

The Switch node (Route by Level) correctly matched 'medium' and produced output on its medium branch. However, the connections JSON shows 'Route by Level': { 'main': [] } — meaning no downstream nod

low-priority [builder_issue]

The Switch node 'Route by Level' correctly matched the 'low' level condition, but the connections JSON shows that 'Route by Level' has no outgoing connections ("main": []). The 'Send Gmail' node exi

happy-path []

The workflow executed without errors and the Slack message was posted to #api-digest. However, the Filter Out qui Titles node incorrectly passed through item id=1 ('qui est esse') — visible in its out

all-filtered [builder_issue]

The scenario requires that when all posts contain 'qui' in their titles, the filter removes all items and the workflow does NOT crash or send an empty message to Slack. However, the Filter Out qui Tit

happy-path [builder_issue]

The workflow failed with a 'Could not get parameter' error on the Log to Airtable node. Multiple issues are present:

1. The Merge Weather node used 'combineByPosition' mode with 3 inputs, but this me

no-alerts [builder_issue]

The workflow failed with 'Could not get parameter' error on the Log to Airtable node. Additionally, the Merge Weather node (configured as combineByPosition with 3 inputs) only output a single item (To

[github-actions]

Performance Comparison

Comparing current → latest master → 14-day baseline

Idle baseline with Instance AI module loaded

Metric	Current	Latest Master	Baseline (avg)	vs Master	vs Baseline	Status
instance-ai-rss-baseline	343.31 MB	386.52 MB	364.63 MB (σ 22.57)	-11.2%	-5.8%	✅
instance-ai-heap-used-baseline	186.61 MB	186.88 MB	186.42 MB (σ 0.27)	-0.1%	+0.1%	✅

Memory consumption baseline with starter plan resources

Metric	Current	Latest Master	Baseline (avg)	vs Master	vs Baseline	Status
memory-heap-used-baseline	114.23 MB	114.39 MB	114.37 MB (σ 0.40)	-0.1%	-0.1%	✅
memory-rss-baseline	353.43 MB	288.44 MB	290.51 MB (σ 41.09)	+22.5%	+21.7%	⚠️

docker-stats

Metric	Current	Latest Master	Baseline (avg)	vs Master	vs Baseline	Status
docker-image-size-n8n	1269.76 MB	1300.48 MB	1273.86 MB (σ 10.81)	-2.4%	-0.3%	✅
docker-image-size-runners	386.00 MB	412.00 MB	392.93 MB (σ 11.30)	-6.3%	-1.8%	✅

How to read this table

• Current: This PR's value (or latest master if PR perf tests haven't run)
• Latest Master: Most recent nightly master measurement
• Baseline: Rolling 14-day average from master
• vs Master: PR impact (current vs latest master)
• vs Baseline: Drift from baseline (current vs rolling avg)
• Status: ✅ within 1σ | ⚠️ 1-2σ | 🔴 >2σ regression

[n8n-assistant]

Successfully created backport PR for release-candidate/2.18.x:

• fix(core): Generate title once there's enough user context (no-changelog) (backport to release-candidate/2.18.x) #28789

[n8n-assistant]

Got released with n8n@2.19.0