Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-codex · error · Error

sendToWorker: text must be < 200 characters

Error message

sendToWorker: text must be < 200 characters

What it means

Guard inside assertWorkerTriggerText: worker trigger/draft text sent through tmux send-keys must stay under 200 characters. Long payloads wrapped in a single send-keys call can get truncated, interleaved, or misinterpreted by the terminal, so the library rejects them upfront rather than corrupting the worker's input stream.

Source

Thrown at src/team/tmux-session.ts:3738

  sleepFractionalSeconds(0.12);
  const secondTarget = resolveTarget();
  if (!secondTarget) return false;
  runTmux(['send-keys', '-t', secondTarget, 'Enter']);
  return true;
}

export const normalizeTmuxCapture = sharedNormalizeTmuxCapture;

function normalizeWorkerTriggerForDraftMatch(value: string | null | undefined): string {
  // Codex/tmux can wrap long path-like trigger text after a hyphen, e.g.
  // `worker-\n  1/inbox.md`. Treat those visual wraps as the original token so
  // delivery verification does not mistake an unsent draft for consumed input.
  return normalizeTmuxCapture(value ?? '').replace(/-\s+/g, '-');
}

function assertWorkerTriggerText(text: string): void {
  if (text.length >= 200) {
    throw new Error('sendToWorker: text must be < 200 characters');
  }
  if (text.trim().length === 0) {
    throw new Error('sendToWorker: text must be non-empty');
  }
  if (text.includes(INJECTION_MARKER)) {
    throw new Error('sendToWorker: injection marker is not allowed');
  }
}

export function sendToWorkerStdin(
  stdin: Pick<NodeJS.WritableStream, 'write' | 'writable'> | null | undefined,
  text: string,
): void {
  assertWorkerTriggerText(text);
  if (!stdin || !stdin.writable) {
    throw new Error('sendToWorkerStdin: stdin is not writable');
  }
  stdin.write(`${text}\n`);

View on GitHub (pinned to 3ad79a8a6f)

Solutions

1. Shorten the trigger text to under 200 characters (move long content to stdin or a file the worker reads)
2. Split the payload: send short trigger via send-keys and long content via another channel (sendToWorkerStdin or file handoff)
3. Add a length check upstream in your own code with a clear user-facing error

Example fix

// before
sendToWorkerStdin(worker.stdin, longPrompt); // 500 chars

// after
if (longPrompt.length >= 200) {
  await writeToFile('/tmp/prompt.txt', longPrompt);
  sendToWorkerStdin(worker.stdin, 'read /tmp/prompt.txt and proceed');
} else {
  sendToWorkerStdin(worker.stdin, longPrompt);
}

const TRIGGER_MAX = 200;
function isValidTriggerLen(text: string): boolean { return text.length < TRIGGER_MAX; }

function isShortTrigger(text: string): boolean { return typeof text === 'string' && text.length < 200 && text.trim().length > 0; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling sendToWorker / sendToWorkerStdin / submit flows with a text argument whose .length >= 200 — e.g. pasting a long prompt, a multi-line instruction, or programmatically generated command text into the trigger argument.

Common situations: User copy-pastes a long prompt into a trigger config; an orchestrator builds a trigger string from a template that grows past 200 chars; feeding a file path plus long args as one trigger.

Related errors

• sendToWorker: text must be non-empty
• sendToWorker: injection marker is not allowed
• invalid auth slot path
• invalid detached leader authority target
• malformed detached leader authority

AI-assisted analysis of Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-codex@3ad79a8a6f (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f918c1662697734b. Report an issue: GitHub.