Hmbown/CodeWhale · error · anyhow::Error

Invalid verbosity '{v}': expected normal or concise.

Error message

Invalid verbosity '{v}': expected normal or concise.

What it means

Config::validate() accepts only 'normal' or 'concise' for the verbosity setting after trim + ASCII lowercase normalization. Any other value aborts validation. This controls response verbosity, not log level, so values like 'debug' or 'quiet' are rejected.

Source

Thrown at crates/tui/src/config.rs:4429

                "Invalid default_text_model '{model}' for provider '{}': expected auto or a model ID this provider serves{hint}.",
                provider.as_str()
            );
        }
        if let Some(policy) = self.approval_policy.as_deref() {
            let normalized = policy.trim().to_ascii_lowercase();
            if !matches!(
                normalized.as_str(),
                "on-request" | "untrusted" | "never" | "auto" | "suggest"
            ) {
                anyhow::bail!(
                    "Invalid approval_policy '{policy}': expected on-request, untrusted, never, auto, or suggest."
                );
            }
        }
        if let Some(v) = self.verbosity.as_deref() {
            let normalized = v.trim().to_ascii_lowercase();
            if !matches!(normalized.as_str(), "normal" | "concise") {
                anyhow::bail!("Invalid verbosity '{v}': expected normal or concise.");
            }
        }
        if let Some(mode) = self.sandbox_mode.as_deref() {
            let normalized = mode.trim().to_ascii_lowercase();
            if !matches!(
                normalized.as_str(),
                "read-only" | "workspace-write" | "danger-full-access" | "external-sandbox"
            ) {
                anyhow::bail!(
                    "Invalid sandbox_mode '{mode}': expected read-only, workspace-write, danger-full-access, or external-sandbox."
                );
            }
        }
        if let Some(tui) = &self.tui
            && let Some(mode) = tui.alternate_screen.as_deref()
        {
            let mode = mode.to_ascii_lowercase();
            if !matches!(mode.as_str(), "auto" | "always" | "never") {

View on GitHub (pinned to 8880682c63)

Solutions

  1. Set verbosity = "normal" or verbosity = "concise".
  2. Delete the key to use the default.
  3. If you wanted log filtering, use the logging-specific configuration instead of verbosity.

Example fix

# before
verbosity = "verbose"

# after
verbosity = "concise"
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

fn verbosity_is_valid(raw: &str) -> bool {
    matches!(raw.trim().to_ascii_lowercase().as_str(), "normal" | "concise")
}

if let Some(v) = &config.verbosity {
    anyhow::ensure!(verbosity_is_valid(v), "verbosity must be normal or concise");
}

Type guard

fn is_valid_verbosity(raw: &str) -> bool {
    matches!(raw.trim().to_ascii_lowercase().as_str(), "normal" | "concise")
}

Try / catch

match config.validate() {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().starts_with("Invalid verbosity") => {
        config.verbosity = None; // drop to default instead of failing
        config.validate()?
    }
    other => other,
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Setting verbosity = "verbose", "quiet", or "terse" in config.toml; carrying over a log-level-style value from another tool.

Common situations: Users assume verbosity is a log filter and try 'debug'/'trace'; config snippets shared online use invalid synonyms.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@8880682c63 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c898ad1f46c1bd52. Report an issue: GitHub.