alibaba/open-code-review · error

sessions belong to different repositories: %s was recorded i

Error message

sessions belong to different repositories: %s was recorded in %s, %s in %s

What it means

runSessionCompare refuses to compare two sessions recorded in different repositories (beforeSummary.RepoDir != afterSummary.RepoDir), because comparing findings across repos is meaningless. This is a deliberate guard, not an I/O failure; a differing review mode only warns, but a differing repo dir is fatal.

Source

Thrown at cmd/opencodereview/session_cmd.go:251

func runSessionCompare(beforeID, afterID string) error {
	resolvedRepo, err := resolveWorkingDirForSession(sessionCompareRepoDir)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	beforeSummary, err := session.LoadSummary(resolvedRepo, beforeID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("load session %q: %w", beforeID, err)
	}
	afterSummary, err := session.LoadSummary(resolvedRepo, afterID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("load session %q: %w", afterID, err)
	}
	// Comparing findings across repositories is meaningless, so it is an error
	// rather than a warning. A different review mode or range still compares
	// usefully (a full scan against a diff run, say), so that only warns.
	if beforeSummary.RepoDir != afterSummary.RepoDir {
		return fmt.Errorf("sessions belong to different repositories: %s was recorded in %s, %s in %s",
			beforeID, beforeSummary.RepoDir, afterID, afterSummary.RepoDir)
	}
	if beforeSummary.ReviewMode != afterSummary.ReviewMode {
		// stderr, never stdout: --json output is piped into other tools.
		fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "[ocr] WARNING review modes differ (%s vs %s); the two runs may not have looked at the same files\n",
			displayMode(beforeSummary.ReviewMode), displayMode(afterSummary.ReviewMode))
	}

	beforeComments, err := session.LoadComments(resolvedRepo, beforeID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("load session %q: %w", beforeID, err)
	}
	afterComments, err := session.LoadComments(resolvedRepo, afterID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("load session %q: %w", afterID, err)
	}
	result := session.Compare(beforeComments, afterComments, reviewedPaths(afterSummary))

View on GitHub (pinned to 5cf97d0d15)

Solutions

1. Compare only sessions recorded in the same repository; check each summary's RepoDir before comparing
2. Re-record both sessions in the same repo/checkout
3. If the repos are actually the same project, pick a single canonical clone and store sessions there

Example fix

// before
ocr session compare s1 s2   // s1 in /work/a, s2 in /work/b
// after
cd /work/a && ocr session compare s1 s2   // both recorded here

b, _ := session.LoadSummary(repo, beforeID)
a, _ := session.LoadSummary(repo, afterID)
if b.RepoDir != a.RepoDir {
    return fmt.Errorf("refusing: %s vs %s", b.RepoDir, a.RepoDir)
}

// parse the wrapped sentinel before proceeding
if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "sessions belong to different repositories") {
    // surface both RepoDirs to the user and abort
}

When it happens

Trigger: ocr session compare where the two loaded session summaries point at different RepoDir values — e.g. comparing a session from repo A with one from repo B, or from two distinct clones/worktrees of the same project.

Common situations: Running compare from a different checkout than where the sessions were made; passing IDs from two unrelated projects; duplicated worktrees.

Related errors

• %w (run 'ocr session list' to see available sessions)
• background file %q is a directory, not a file
• background file %q is %d bytes, exceeding the maximum of %d
• invalid scan template: %w
• load resume session: %w (run 'ocr session list' to see avail

AI-assisted analysis of alibaba/open-code-review@5cf97d0d15 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3a2ac052bf606b90. Report an issue: GitHub.