alibaba/open-code-review · error

only one review mode allowed (--from/--to or --commit)

Error message

only one review mode allowed (--from/--to or --commit)

What it means

validateDiffMode enforces that exactly one review mode is selected. When both the range mode (--from/--to) and single-commit mode (--commit) are supplied simultaneously, modeCount exceeds 1 and the command is rejected. The two modes are mutually exclusive interpretations of what to diff.

Source

Thrown at cmd/opencodereview/shared_flags.go:94

func completeEnum(values ...string) func(*cobra.Command, []string, string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
	return func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
		return values, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
	}
}

// --- Validation functions ---

func validateDiffMode(from, to, commit string) error {
	modeCount := 0
	if from != "" || to != "" {
		modeCount++
	}
	if commit != "" {
		modeCount++
	}
	if modeCount > 1 {
		return fmt.Errorf("only one review mode allowed (--from/--to or --commit)")
	}
	if from != "" && to == "" {
		return fmt.Errorf("--to is required when --from is specified")
	}
	if to != "" && from == "" {
		return fmt.Errorf("--from is required when --to is specified")
	}
	return nil
}

func validateAudience(audience string) error {
	switch audience {
	case "human", "agent":
		return nil
	default:
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid --audience value %q: must be 'human' or 'agent'", audience)
	}
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5cf97d0d15)

Solutions

1. Remove --commit if you want to review a range, keep --from X --to Y
2. Remove --from/--to if you want to review a single commit, keep --commit SHA
3. In wrapper scripts, pass the range OR the commit, never both
4. Read `ocr review --help` to confirm which mode your flags select

Example fix

// before
ocr review --from main --to HEAD --commit abc123
// after
ocr review --from main --to HEAD

count=0; [ -n "$COMMIT" ] && count=$((count+1)); { [ -n "$FROM" ] || [ -n "$TO" ]; } && count=$((count+1)); [ "$count" -le 1 ] || { echo 'use either --from/--to or --commit, not both'; exit 2; }

null

if ! ocr review "$@" 2>err.log; then grep -q 'only one review mode allowed' err.log && echo 'Remove --commit or --from/--to from your command' ; fi

When it happens

Trigger: Passing --commit <sha> together with --from and/or --to on review or delegate subcommands (validateDiffMode is invoked from validateReviewOptions and validateDelegateOptions).

Common situations: Scripts that always append --commit but get --from/--to injected from CI environment; copying an example command and adding an extra flag; shell wrappers accumulating flags across versions of the tool.

Understand the failure class

Background: "mutually exclusive" flag errors: what "can't supply both nx and xx", "--raw is not compatible with -i" and "cannot be used with" mean, and how to fix them — this error's family across 29 libraries.

Related errors

• --to is required when --from is specified
• --from is required when --to is specified
• invalid --audience value %q: must be 'human' or 'agent'
• invalid --format value %q: must be 'text', 'json', or 'sarif
• --preview and --resume cannot be used together

AI-assisted analysis of alibaba/open-code-review@5cf97d0d15 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d1cc7b2223ce2dee. Report an issue: GitHub.