BLAST Orchestrator Reliability & Managed Identity Fallback

Date: 2026-05-10

Motivation

The BLAST submit orchestrator had several reliability issues: 1. elastic-blast status could report EXIT_CODE=0 prematurely when az login failed or the temporary AKS cluster had not been created yet. 2. The orchestrator's custom_status did not include per-step results, making it impossible for the frontend to show detailed execution progress. 3. Activities failed when the VM's az login session expired — no automatic fallback to managed identity. 4. Storage network rules with VNet/Service Endpoints caused publicNetworkAccess=Disabled toggle to break legitimate VNet access.

Changes

Backend

File	Change
api/orchestrators/submit_blast.py	Added steps dict accumulating per-phase results into custom_status and final output. Added MIN_POLLS_BEFORE_COMPLETE = 3 — early "completed" results within the first 90 s are ignored and treated as running.
api/activities/blast.py	Submit activity: managed identity fallback (az login --identity if az account show fails). Export activity: added az aks get-credentials, az storage blob upload as azcopy alternative, error detection improved (line-start ERROR: + keyword matching). mem_limit default changed from 32Gi to 24Gi for Standard_D8s_v3 compatibility.
api/services/monitoring.py	set_storage_public_access(): when VNet rules exist, keeps publicNetworkAccess=Enabled and only toggles defaultAction between Allow/Deny. Prevents breaking Service Endpoint access.
api/services/storage_data.py	Added read_blob_text() for reading blob content (used by file preview endpoint).

Frontend

File	Change
web/src/pages/BlastResults.tsx	GitHub Actions-style collapsible Execution Steps with per-phase detail logs. FASTA syntax highlighting (A=green, T/U=red, G=yellow, C=blue). INI syntax highlighting. Cancel button with ConfirmDialog. Duration display (live timer + final). Results file type badges. Re-submit link. StorageLockedPanel with Enable & Load affordance.
web/src/pages/BlastJobs.tsx	View button removed; job title click navigates to detail.

Validation

• 13 Python tests pass.
• TypeScript compiles with 0 errors.
• BLAST job job-3c417e30ef44 ran end-to-end with step accumulation visible in UI.