affaan-m/ECC · error · Error

Worker is missing a task

Error message

Worker ${index + 1} is missing a task

What it means

While mapping workers into plans, buildOrchestrationPlan validates that each worker has a non-empty task string and throws with the worker's 1-based index when it does not. This ensures every generated worktree session has real work assigned.

Solutions

1. Set a non-empty task string on the worker named in the error message (index is 1-based).
2. Rename the wrong field (e.g. description -> task) in the worker config.
3. Validate the workers array at config load: every entry has typeof task === 'string' && task.trim().length > 0.
4. Fix the producer that generated the worker list to always emit task.

Example fix

// before
workers: [{ name: 'worker-1', description: 'run tests' }]
// after
workers: [{ name: 'worker-1', task: 'run tests' }]

config.workers.forEach((w, i) => {
  if (!w || typeof w.task !== 'string' || w.task.trim().length === 0) {
    throw new Error(`Worker ${i + 1} has no task`);
  }
});

const hasTask = (w) => w != null && typeof w.task === 'string' && w.task.trim().length > 0;

try {
  const plan = buildOrchestrationPlan(config);
} catch (e) {
  const m = String(e.message).match(/Worker (\d+) is missing a task/);
  if (m) console.error(`Fix worker #${m[1]} in config.workers`);
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing workers: [{}] or [{ task: '' }]; a worker object where task is null/undefined or a non-string (number, object); programmatically building workers where the task field is assigned the wrong key name.

Common situations: Config workers entries with 'description' instead of 'task'; deserialized JSON where tasks were dropped; iterating over input files and creating a worker placeholder before the task text is known.

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

• buildOrchestrationPlan requires at least one worker
• launcherCommand must be a non-empty string
• orchestration template
• seedPaths entries must stay inside repoRoot
• -32602

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b9524fc6697662db. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at scripts/lib/tmux-worktree-orchestrator.js:196

  const workers = Array.isArray(config.workers) ? config.workers : [];
  const globalSeedPaths = normalizeSeedPaths(config.seedPaths, repoRoot);
  const sessionName = slugify(config.sessionName || repoName, 'session');
  const worktreeRoot = path.resolve(config.worktreeRoot || path.dirname(repoRoot));
  const coordinationRoot = path.resolve(
    config.coordinationRoot || path.join(repoRoot, '.orchestration')
  );
  const coordinationDir = path.join(coordinationRoot, sessionName);
  const baseRef = config.baseRef || 'HEAD';
  const defaultLauncher = config.launcherCommand || '';

  if (workers.length === 0) {
    throw new Error('buildOrchestrationPlan requires at least one worker');
  }

  const seenSlugs = new Set();
  const workerPlans = workers.map((worker, index) => {
    if (!worker || typeof worker.task !== 'string' || worker.task.trim().length === 0) {
      throw new Error(`Worker ${index + 1} is missing a task`);
    }

    const workerName = worker.name || `worker-${index + 1}`;
    const workerSlug = slugify(workerName, `worker-${index + 1}`);

    if (seenSlugs.has(workerSlug)) {
      throw new Error(`Workers must have unique slugs — duplicate: ${workerSlug}`);
    }
    seenSlugs.add(workerSlug);

    const branchName = `orchestrator-${sessionName}-${workerSlug}`;
    const worktreePath = path.join(worktreeRoot, `${repoName}-${sessionName}-${workerSlug}`);
    const workerCoordinationDir = path.join(coordinationDir, workerSlug);
    const taskFilePath = path.join(workerCoordinationDir, 'task.md');
    const handoffFilePath = path.join(workerCoordinationDir, 'handoff.md');
    const statusFilePath = path.join(workerCoordinationDir, 'status.md');
    const launcherCommand = worker.launcherCommand || defaultLauncher;
    const workerSeedPaths = normalizeSeedPaths(worker.seedPaths, repoRoot);

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