Hmbown/CodeWhale · critical · RuntimeError

Codewhale install failed: ${(result.stderr or result.stdout)

Error message

Codewhale install failed: ${(result.stderr or result.stdout).strip()[-500:]}

What it means

Without binary_path, setup() runs a generated POSIX install script via sh -c: it enforces Linux on x86_64/arm64, bootstraps curl/sha256sum/flock through apt-get or apk, flocks the install dir, downloads three platform assets plus a sha256 manifest from https://github.com/Hmbown/CodeWhale/releases/download/v<version>, verifies every checksum, and installs into /tmp/vf-codewhale/bin. Any non-zero exit raises RuntimeError embedding the last 500 characters of stderr/stdout, which names the failing step.

Source

Thrown at integrations/verifiers-codewhale/codewhale_harness/harness.py:139

        self._validate_config()
        if self.config.binary_path:
            logger.info("codewhale: verifying preinstalled %s", self.binary)
            result = await runtime.run([self.binary, "--version"], {})
            version_text = f"{result.stdout}\n{result.stderr}"
            if result.exit_code != 0 or not _has_version(
                version_text, self.config.version
            ):
                raise RuntimeError(
                    "configured Codewhale binary is unavailable or does not report "
                    f"version {self.config.version}"
                )
            return

        logger.info("codewhale: ensuring Codewhale %s is installed", self.config.version)
        script = _install_script(self.config.version)
        result = await runtime.run(["sh", "-c", script], {})
        if result.exit_code != 0:
            raise RuntimeError(
                "Codewhale install failed: "
                + (result.stderr or result.stdout).strip()[-500:]
            )

    async def launch(
        self,
        ctx: ModelContext,
        trace: Trace,
        runtime: Runtime,
        endpoint: str,
        secret: str,
        mcp_urls: dict[str, str],
    ) -> ProgramResult:
        self._validate_config()
        system, prompt = self.resolve_prompt(trace.task.data)
        trace_key = hashlib.sha256(str(trace.id).encode()).hexdigest()[:32]
        home = f".vf-codewhale/{trace_key}"
        mcp_path = f"{home}/mcp.json"

View on GitHub (pinned to 8880682c63)

Solutions

1. Read the 500-char stderr tail embedded in the exception; it identifies the exact failing command
2. Verify egress to https://github.com/Hmbown/CodeWhale/releases and retry; transient curl failures clear on a second rollout
3. On non-Linux or unusual-arch hosts, preinstall the binary and set binary_path instead
4. Confirm the pinned tag has all assets (codewhale-<platform>, codew-<platform>, codewhale-tui-<platform>) and the sha256 manifest
5. Bake curl, ca-certificates, coreutils, and util-linux into the image, or preinstall the binaries and use binary_path

Example fix

# before
config = CodewhaleHarnessConfig(version='0.9.1')  # runtime blocks github.com egress
# after
config = CodewhaleHarnessConfig(version='0.9.1', binary_path='/opt/codewhale/bin/codewhale')

import platform, shutil
installable = (
    platform.system() == 'Linux'
    and platform.machine() in ('x86_64', 'amd64', 'aarch64', 'arm64')
    and shutil.which('curl') is not None
)
if not installable:
    config = config.model_copy(update={'binary_path': '/opt/codewhale/bin/codewhale'})

last = None
for attempt in range(3):
    try:
        await harness.setup(runtime)
        break
    except RuntimeError as e:
        last = e
        if 'install failed' not in str(e):
            raise
        await asyncio.sleep(2 ** attempt)
else:
    raise last

When it happens

Trigger: Non-Linux or unsupported-architecture runtimes; blocked egress to github.com; a release tag missing an asset or its manifest; checksum mismatch from truncated downloads; minimal images lacking curl with neither apt-get nor apk available.

Common situations: Training containers with allow-listed network policies; freshly tagged releases whose assets are still uploading; TLS-intercepting proxies breaking curl -fsSL; distroless images without a package manager.

Related errors

• Could not inspect GitHub Release ${tag}: ${detail}
• configured Codewhale binary is unavailable or does not repor
• parallel(): max ${MAX_ITEMS} items per call
• pipeline(): expected an array of items
• pipeline(): max ${MAX_ITEMS} items per call

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@8880682c63 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/563ee0adee778384. Report an issue: GitHub.