getFooterAgentFailureCommentMessage in messages_footer.cjs (lines 395–422) never calls getAICFromEnv(), never computes aiCreditsSuffix, and the default template contains no {ai_credits_suffix} placeholder. Passing aiCredits into ctx has zero effect on the rendered comment footer.

The diagnostic log on line 2845 says "Generating failure comment footer with aiCredits context: X" — which implies AIC was incorporated, but it was not. This misleads anyone debugging why AIC is absent from a comment.

Fix one of:

• If AIC should appear in comment footers (consistent with the fix for issue footers): update getFooterAgentFailureCommentMessage to process ctx.aiCredits and include {ai_credits_suffix} in its default template, mirroring the new getFooterAgentFailureIssueMessage logic.
• If AIC is intentionally omitted from comment footers: remove aiCredits from the comment ctx and drop the misleading core.info log.

const explicitContextAIC = parsePositiveAIC(ctx.aiCredits != null ? String(ctx.aiCredits) : undefined);
const aiCredits = explicitContextAIC ?? envAIC;

parsePositiveAIC requires parsed > 0 (strictly positive). If ctx.aiCredits = 0 — an agent that ran but consumed zero AI credits — parsePositiveAIC returns undefined, and the ?? falls back to envAIC. The explicitly-resolved audit-log value is silently discarded.

Compare with getFooterMessage (line 158), which simply does:

const aiCredits = ctx.aiCredits ?? envAIC;

This correctly uses 0 when explicitly passed and only falls back to env for null/undefined.

Suggested fix — mirror the getFooterMessage pattern:

const aiCredits = ctx.aiCredits != null ? ctx.aiCredits : envAIC;
const hasExplicitContextAIC = ctx.aiCredits !== undefined && ctx.aiCredits !== null;

Here (line 344):

const hasExplicitContextAIC = explicitContextAIC !== undefined;
// where explicitContextAIC = parsePositiveAIC(String(ctx.aiCredits))

In getFooterMessage (line 167):

const hasExplicitContextAIC = ctx.aiCredits !== undefined && ctx.aiCredits !== null;

Behavioral differences:

The two code paths should share a single helper or use the same guard expression to avoid silent divergence.

issuesAndPullRequests: vi.fn(async ({ q }) => {
  if (q.includes("is:pr")) {
    return { data: { total_count: 0, items: [] } }; // same as below
  }
  return { data: { total_count: 0, items: [] } };   // same
}),

This is exactly what the existing test mock was simplified to (removing the q.includes("is:pr") branch) earlier in this PR. Apply the same simplification here:

issuesAndPullRequests: vi.fn(async () => ({
  data: { total_count: 0, items: [] },
})),

The issue path now correctly resolves aiCreditsSuffix via explicitContextAIC ?? envAIC (lines 342–346 here). The comment path should mirror this:

// In getFooterAgentFailureCommentMessage:
const { aiCredits: envAIC, aiCreditsFormatted: envAICFormatted, aiCreditsSuffix: envAICSuffix } = getAICFromEnv();
const explicitContextAIC = parsePositiveAIC(ctx.aiCredits != null ? String(ctx.aiCredits) : undefined);
const aiCredits = explicitContextAIC ?? envAIC;
const hasExplicitContextAIC = explicitContextAIC !== undefined;
const aiCreditsFormatted = hasExplicitContextAIC ? (aiCredits ? formatAIC(aiCredits) : undefined) : envAICFormatted;
const aiCreditsSuffix = hasExplicitContextAIC ? (aiCreditsFormatted ? ` · ${aiCreditsFormatted} AIC` : "") : envAICSuffix;
const templateContext = toSnakeCase({ ...ctx, historyLink, agenticWorkflowUrl, aiCredits, aiCreditsFormatted, aiCreditsSuffix });

This ensures the raw ctx.aiCredits string passed from handle_agent_failure.cjs is properly parsed and that {ai_credits_suffix} is available to custom templates.

Add a precondition check at the top of the test:

assert.equal(
  process.env.GH_AW_AIC,
  undefined,
  "GH_AW_AIC must be unset so the audit-log fallback is exercised"
);

This turns an implicit reliance on test-ordering into a loud, self-diagnosing failure if the assumption ever breaks.

Add a companion test that captures the comment body (from issues.createComment or equivalent) and asserts it contains the expected AIC string, mirroring this test but targeting the comment code path in handle_agent_failure.cjs.