Hmbown/CodeWhale · error · RegistryError

invalid_user

invalid_user

Error message

user must be a plain name

What it means

RegistryError "invalid_user": for ssh transports, an optional rest.user must match ^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$ — a plain login name. The user string is interpolated into an ssh command line, so values containing spaces, @, /, or shell metacharacters are rejected to prevent argument injection and broken ssh invocations.

Solutions

1. Use only the bare login name, e.g. user: "alice".
2. Strip domain prefixes/backslashes and everything after @ or space before registering.
3. Omit rest.user entirely to rely on the machine's default ssh identity/ssh-config user.
4. Escape or sanitize any programmatically derived user value against ^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$.

Example fix

// before
register({ id: "lab", transport: "ssh", host: "10.0.0.5", user: "alice@example.com" });
// after
register({ id: "lab", transport: "ssh", host: "10.0.0.5", user: "alice" });

const USER_RE = /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$/;
if (user != null && (typeof user !== "string" || !USER_RE.test(user))) throw new Error("user must be a plain login name");

const isPlainUser = (u) => typeof u === "string" && /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$/.test(u);

try {
  register(cfg);
} catch (e) {
  if (e?.code === "invalid_user") throw new Error(`User "${cfg.user}" rejected; use the bare login name`);
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: register({ id: "x", transport: "ssh", host: "h", user: "alice dev" }); user: "alice; rm -rf /"; user: "domain\\alice"; user: "" (empty string fails the regex).

Common situations: Copy-pasting a full identity like "alice@example.com" or "DOMAIN\\alice" from Windows environments; accidentally leaving an empty user key from a template; shell-quoted strings from scripts.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• invalid_host
• invalid_port
• invalid_container
• invalid_id
• invalid registry url

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@73e0f67d83 (2026-09-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1588f95e0e2776f7. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/tui/plugins/computer-use/src/registry.mjs:94

/** Register or update a computer. Returns the entry. */
export function register({ id, transport, label, ...rest }) {
  if (!id || !ID_RE.test(id)) throw new RegistryError("invalid_id", "computer id must match " + ID_RE);
  if (!["local", "ssh", "hdc", "docker"].includes(transport)) {
    throw new RegistryError("invalid_transport", "transport must be one of: local, ssh, hdc, docker");
  }
  if (id === "local" && transport !== "local") {
    throw new RegistryError("reserved_id", '"local" is reserved for this machine');
  }
  if (transport === "ssh") {
    if (!rest.host || !/^[A-Za-z0-9._-]+$/.test(rest.host)) {
      throw new RegistryError("invalid_host", "ssh computers need a valid host (letters, digits, dot, dash, underscore)");
    }
    if (rest.port != null && (!Number.isInteger(rest.port) || rest.port < 1 || rest.port > 65535)) {
      throw new RegistryError("invalid_port", "port must be an integer in 1..65535");
    }
    if (rest.user != null && !/^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$/.test(rest.user)) {
      throw new RegistryError("invalid_user", "user must be a plain name");
    }
  }
  if (transport === "hdc") {
    if (rest.target != null && !/^[A-Za-z0-9._-]*$/.test(rest.target)) {
      throw new RegistryError("invalid_target", "hdc target key contains invalid characters");
    }
    rest.platform = "harmonyos";
  }
  if (transport === "docker") {
    if (!rest.container || !/^[A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9_.-]{0,127}$/.test(rest.container)) {
      throw new RegistryError("invalid_container", "docker computers need a valid container name");
    }
    // Spawned containers always run the Linux desktop image.
    rest.platform = rest.platform ?? "linux";
  }
  const reg = load();
  const prev = reg.computers[id];
  reg.computers[id] = {

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