JuliusBrussee/caveman · error

rewriter: theta must not be negative, got %d

Error message

rewriter: theta must not be negative, got %d

What it means

New validated the rewriter theta gate configuration and found a negative Theta value. Theta zero defaults to DefaultTheta, but a negative threshold is nonsensical for the gate (it would invert the accept/reject decision) and is rejected at construction time.

Source

Thrown at rewriter/rewriter.go:144

// gate was designed for.
func New(cfg Config) (*Client, error) {
	provider := strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(cfg.Provider))
	if provider != providerAnthropic && provider != providerOpenAI {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("rewriter: unsupported provider %q", cfg.Provider)
	}
	model := strings.TrimSpace(cfg.Model)
	if model == "" {
		return nil, errors.New("rewriter: model is required")
	}
	if strings.TrimSpace(cfg.APIKey) == "" {
		return nil, errors.New("rewriter: api key is required")
	}
	theta := cfg.Theta
	if theta == 0 {
		theta = DefaultTheta
	}
	if theta < 0 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("rewriter: theta must not be negative, got %d", theta)
	}
	doer := cfg.HTTPDoer
	if doer == nil {
		doer = http.DefaultClient.Do
	}
	return &Client{provider: provider, model: model, apiKey: cfg.APIKey, theta: theta, doer: doer}, nil
}

// Rewrite condenses req.StepBytes, or explains why it did not.
//
// Gate 1 (invocation) skips the API call entirely when the step is at or under
// θ tokens. Gate 2 (application) plus the fidelity checks in Accept decide
// whether the completion may replace the original. Only an accepted result
// carries bytes; every other path returns an empty Rewritten and a reason.
func (c *Client) Rewrite(ctx context.Context, req Request) (Result, error) {
	originalTokens := countTokens(req.StepBytes)
	if originalTokens <= c.theta {
		return Result{RejectReason: reasonBelowTheta}, nil

View on GitHub (pinned to 766dce6b13)

Solutions

1. Set Theta to a non-negative value (or 0/omit it to use DefaultTheta)
2. Remove the negative sign — likely a typo in configuration

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at rewriter/rewriter.go:144 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of JuliusBrussee/caveman@766dce6b13 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/17208ad6b60b01fa. Report an issue: GitHub.