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[9.4](backport #7712) feat: add synchronous enrollment write strategy to prevent ghost agents - #7721

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[9.4](backport #7712) feat: add synchronous enrollment write strategy to prevent ghost agents#7721
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@mergify mergify Bot commented Aug 29, 2026

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What is the problem this PR solves?

When an enrollment write is committed to fleet-server's in-memory bulk queue but the HTTP response is lost before it reaches the agent (network drop, EOF), the agent retries enrollment. If the retry lands on a different pod, that pod's FindAgent search finds nothing — the write hasn't been flushed to Elasticsearch yet — and creates a second agent document. These duplicate documents ("ghost agents") accumulate and do not resolve on their own.

The batched pre-refresh dedup approach in #7662 cannot prevent this: cross-pod retries are never in the same flush batch, so in-batch dedup never fires. Evidence from the 30k serverless checkin scale test: 35 ghost agents with enrolled_at timestamps clustered in a 21-second window (11:53:42–11:54:03 UTC), zero ErrEnrollDuplicate 429s — confirming in-batch dedup never triggered for any of the 35 retries.

How does this PR solve the problem?

A new feature flag, inputs[].server.feature_flags._sync_enrollment_write (default: false), selects the enrollment write strategy.

When false (default), the existing async bulk queue path is unchanged.

When true, createFleetAgent writes the agent document directly to Elasticsearch using op_type=create&refresh=wait_for. ES blocks until the document is committed and visible to search on all shards before returning. The enrollment response is not sent until this write completes, so any retry on any pod finds the existing document immediately. A 409 from op_type=create is treated as success.

The _ prefix on the flag name signals that it is internal and temporary. The intent is to enable it in Staging via serverless-gitops, validate with the 30k checkin scale test, and then remove the flag entirely — making the sync path the permanent enrollment write path.

How to test this PR locally

Enable the flag and run the 30k Fleet Server checkin scale test against Staging. Confirm ghost agent count is 0 after enrollment completes.

Design Checklist

  • I have ensured my design is stateless and will work when multiple fleet-server instances are behind a load balancer.
  • I have or intend to scale test my changes, ensuring it will work reliably with 100K+ agents connected.
  • I have included fail safe mechanisms to limit the load on fleet-server: rate limiting, circuit breakers, caching, load shedding, etc.

Checklist

  • I have added an entry in ./changelog/fragments using the changelog tool

Related issues

…ts (#7712)

* feat: add synchronous enrollment write strategy to prevent ghost agents

Introduce inputs[].server.feature_flags.sync_enrollment_write (default
false). When true, createFleetAgent writes the agent document directly
with op_type=create&refresh=wait_for so the document is committed and
visible to search before the enrollment response is sent. Any retry on
any pod finds the existing document immediately, eliminating ghost agents
caused by the async bulk queue / EOF race. The existing async path is
unchanged when the flag is false.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor: rename feature flag to _sync_enrollment_write to signal temporary status

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: fix createFleetAgent call to pass syncWrite argument

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: add unit tests for sync enrollment write path

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: spell out full config key in SyncEnrollmentWrite comment

The config tag uses an underscore prefix (_sync_enrollment_write) but
the doc comment didn't make the exact key explicit, causing inconsistency
with the PR description. Spell out the full key in the comment.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: remove changelog fragment

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: fix spelling behaviour -> behavior in comment

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: assert op_type=create and refresh=wait_for in sync enrollment tests

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
(cherry picked from commit d6324c7)
@mergify mergify Bot added the backport label Aug 29, 2026
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mergify Bot requested a review from a team as a code owner August 29, 2026 00:43
@mergify
mergify Bot requested review from blakerouse and ycombinator and removed request for a team August 29, 2026 00:43
@github-actions github-actions Bot added the Team:Elastic-Agent-Control-Plane Label for the Agent Control Plane team label Aug 29, 2026
@ycombinator
ycombinator enabled auto-merge (squash) August 29, 2026 00:48
@ycombinator
ycombinator merged commit 8f747d0 into 9.4 Aug 29, 2026
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@ycombinator
ycombinator deleted the mergify/bp/9.4/pr-7712 branch August 29, 2026 02:21
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