affaan-m/ECC · error · Error

review packet is empty

Error message

review packet is empty

What it means

runReview() validates the review packet before invoking Codex. A packet that is empty or contains only whitespace fails `!prompt.trim()` and throws 'review packet is empty'. The script refuses to send a useless empty prompt to the external model.

Solutions

1. Ensure the review packet (stdin or the prompt argument) contains non-whitespace content before calling runReview
2. Check the upstream command that generates the packet actually produced output (e.g. `git diff` in a repo with changes)
3. Guard the caller: `if (!packet.trim()) { skip review }` before invoking
4. When piping, verify you used the correct file/variable and not an uninitialized one

Example fix

// before
const review = runReview(fs.readFileSync('packet.txt', 'utf8'), options);
// after
const packet = fs.readFileSync('packet.txt', 'utf8');
if (!packet.trim()) throw new Error('packet.txt is empty; nothing to review');
const review = runReview(packet, options);

function isNonEmptyPacket(prompt) {
  return typeof prompt === 'string' && prompt.trim().length > 0;
}
if (!isNonEmptyPacket(packet)) throw new Error('review packet is empty');

function isNonEmptyString(v) {
  return typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0;
}

try {
  return runReview(prompt, options);
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message === 'review packet is empty') {
    console.error('Nothing to review: packet was blank');
    return null;
  }
  throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: runReview(prompt, options) called with prompt = '' or a whitespace-only string (e.g. '\n', ' '); in the CLI path this happens when stdin delivered no bytes or only whitespace.

Common situations: Piping an empty file or an empty command substitution into the script (`echo -n '' | review-with-codex.js ...`); an upstream step that produced no diff/notes; a variable holding the packet that was never populated.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• at least one explicit seed is required
• At least one guided harness must be selected
• at least one non-empty
• at least one placement is required
• At least one video is required

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4222cfe9c33d741f. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at skills/council-multi-model/scripts/review-with-codex.js:182

      `Codex ${versionMatch[1]} cannot guarantee tool-less review; `
      + `required stable feature toggles unavailable: ${unavailable.join(', ')}`
    );
  }
  return versionMatch[1];
}

function buildEnvironment(sourceEnv = process.env) {
  const allowed = [
    'PATH', 'HOME', 'USERPROFILE', 'CODEX_HOME',
    'TMPDIR', 'TMP', 'TEMP', 'SystemRoot', 'ComSpec', 'PATHEXT',
  ];
  return Object.fromEntries(
    allowed.filter((name) => sourceEnv[name]).map((name) => [name, sourceEnv[name]])
  );
}

function runReview(prompt, options, dependencies = {}) {
  if (!prompt.trim()) throw new Error('review packet is empty');
  if (Buffer.byteLength(prompt, 'utf8') > MAX_PROMPT_BYTES) {
    throw new Error(`review packet exceeds ${MAX_PROMPT_BYTES} bytes`);
  }
  if (!options.consent) throw new Error('OpenAI transfer consent is required');
  if (options.timeoutMs < 10_000 || options.timeoutMs > MAX_TIMEOUT_MS) {
    throw new Error('timeout is outside the 10-120 second safety range');
  }

  const spawn = dependencies.spawnSync || spawnSync;
  const environment = buildEnvironment(dependencies.env || process.env);
  const verifySupport = dependencies.verifyToollessSupport || verifyToollessSupport;
  verifySupport({ spawnSync: spawn, env: environment });
  const makeTemp = dependencies.mkdtempSync || fs.mkdtempSync;
  const readFile = dependencies.readFileSync || fs.readFileSync;
  const remove = dependencies.rmSync || fs.rmSync;
  const tempDir = makeTemp(path.join(os.tmpdir(), 'ecc-council-review-'));
  const outputFile = path.join(tempDir, 'last-message.txt');

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