AprilNEA/OpenLogi · error

--channel must not be empty

Error message

--channel must not be empty

What it means

`validate_metadata` rejects a `record-case` invocation whose `--channel` value is empty or only whitespace. The channel identifies which HID++ reporting channel the case was captured on and must be non-empty to sanitize and replay the recording.

Solutions

1. Pass a concrete channel value, e.g. `--channel short-hidpp` or `--channel long-hidpp`
2. In scripts, require the variable: `: "${CHANNEL:?CHANNEL must be set}"`
3. Validate/trim upstream inputs before building the CLI invocation

Example fix

// before
openlogi fixture record-case --channel "$CHANNEL"   # CHANNEL blank
// after
: "${CHANNEL:?CHANNEL must be set}"
openlogi fixture record-case --channel "$CHANNEL"

if channel.trim().is_empty() {
    return Err("--channel must be a non-empty channel identifier");
}

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking `openlogi fixture record-case --channel ""` or `--channel " "`, typically from a script where the channel variable is unset or blank.

Common situations: CI scripts with a missing CHANNEL env var; hand-editing a command line and deleting the channel value; generating invocations from a template where an optional field was dropped.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• --name must not be empty
• --id must be a nonempty synthetic identifier
• --name must be a nonempty synthetic profile name
• saved contribution profile does not match its resumable…
• --id must be a nonempty synthetic path component

AI-assisted analysis of AprilNEA/OpenLogi@e846e6f4b4 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e5bbdcce2c1bb1a1. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/openlogi-cli/src/cmd/fixture/record_case.rs:300

pub(super) async fn capture_for_contribution(
    operation: FixtureOperation,
    target: &CaptureTarget,
    name: &str,
    channel: &str,
    capacity: usize,
    identity_plan: &HidCassetteIdentityPlan,
) -> Result<HidCassette> {
    let (recording, observation) = capture(operation, target.route(), capacity).await?;
    let candidates = audit::sanitize_recording_with_plan(recording, name, channel, identity_plan)?;
    replay::select_self_replaying(operation, &target.target, &observation, candidates).await
}

fn validate_metadata(args: &RecordCaseArgs) -> Result<()> {
    if args.name.trim().is_empty() {
        bail!("--name must not be empty");
    }
    if args.channel.trim().is_empty() {
        bail!("--channel must not be empty");
    }
    Ok(())
}

async fn acquire_capture_ownership() -> Result<InstanceGuard> {
    // The agent acquires this same lock before any HID I/O. An endpoint probe
    // alone misses both early startup and a relaunch after the probe returns.
    let guard = single_instance::acquire("agent.lock").context(
        "refusing direct fixture capture: could not acquire agent.lock; \
         stop the OpenLogi agent and any other fixture capture before retrying",
    )?;
    match tokio::time::timeout(AGENT_PROBE_TIMEOUT, client::connect()).await {
        Ok(Err(ConnectError::Endpoint(error))) if endpoint_is_unreachable(&error) => Ok(guard),
        Ok(Ok(_) | Err(ConnectError::Handshake(_) | ConnectError::Endpoint(_))) | Err(_) => bail!(
            "refusing direct fixture capture because the agent endpoint is active or accepted a \
             connection without completing a healthy handshake; this command uses the CLI's own \
             HID permission and identity, so stop the OpenLogi agent before retrying"
        ),

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