aaif-goose/goose · error · anyhow::Error

session has no messages to edit

Error message

session has no messages to edit

What it means

When a session is resumed with the edit flag, goose loads the stored session record and opens its `conversation` field in an external editor via edit_conversation. Sessions that were created but never received a message have `conversation: None`, and attempting to edit them is rejected.

Source

Thrown at crates/goose-cli/src/cli.rs:1689

        if let Some(ref id) = session_id {
            let session_manager = SessionManager::instance();
            let original = session_manager.get_session(id, true).await?;

            let target_id = if fork {
                let copied = session_manager
                    .copy_session(id, original.name.clone())
                    .await?;
                let copied_id = copied.id.clone();
                session_id = Some(copied.id);
                copied_id
            } else {
                id.clone()
            };

            if edit {
                let conversation = original
                    .conversation
                    .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("session has no messages to edit"))?;
                let edited = crate::session::editor::edit_conversation(&conversation)?;
                session_manager
                    .replace_conversation(&target_id, &edited)
                    .await?;
            }
        }
    }

    let mut session: crate::CliSession = build_session(SessionBuilderConfig {
        session_id,
        resume,
        fork,
        no_session: false,
        extensions: extension_opts.extensions,
        streamable_http_extensions: extension_opts.streamable_http_extensions,
        builtins: extension_opts.builtins,
        no_profile: extension_opts.no_profile,
        recipe: None,

View on GitHub (pinned to 3810898a74)

Solutions

1. Choose a session that actually contains messages (inspect it via the session list/viewer first)
2. If you want a clean slate, start a new session instead of editing an empty one
3. Send at least one message in that session before attempting to edit it

Example fix

# before
goose session --edit <id-of-empty-session>   # error: no messages to edit

# after
goose session --edit <id-of-session-with-messages>

# Rust (embedding goose): confirm the session actually has a conversation first
let conversation = original.conversation.as_ref().filter(|c| !c.is_empty());
if conversation.is_none() {
    anyhow::bail!("cannot edit: session has no messages");
}

fn is_editable(conversation: &Option<Vec<goose::message::Message>>) -> bool {
    conversation.as_ref().is_some_and(|c| !c.is_empty())
}

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking the resume-with-edit path (`--edit`) targeting a session id whose stored record has no conversation; also forked/copied sessions created from an original that was empty.

Common situations: Picking a session id from `goose session list` that was opened and immediately quit before the first message; a typo resolving to an empty session; automation resuming a session that errored on startup before any turn.

Related errors

• No session found to resume
• No session found with name '{}'
• Could not extract session ID from path: {:?}
• Invalid identifier
• Cannot use --session-id without --resume

AI-assisted analysis of aaif-goose/goose@3810898a74 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0fdea5cf84a07837. Report an issue: GitHub.