Operation ${operationNumber} has no visible current text.

Error message

Operation ${operationNumber} has no visible current text.

What it means

The sloppy-edit pattern parser rejects an operation whose pattern contains no gap marker (`...`) and no selection markers (`«` `»`), yet after normalizing (trimming indentation and whitespace) has no visible text left. Such a pattern carries no anchor content at all, so the library throws rather than try to match an empty literal against the file.

Source

Thrown at packages/coding-agent/src/edit/sloppy.ts:1485

	return { text, starts, ends };
}

function patternGapAt(source: string, offset: number): string | undefined {
	return source.startsWith(GAP, offset) ? GAP : undefined;
}

function patternContainsGap(source: string): boolean {
	return source.includes(GAP);
}

function parsePattern(pattern: string, operationNumber: number): ParsedPattern {
	if (pattern.trim() === "") throw new Error(`Operation ${operationNumber} has an empty pattern.`);
	validateSelectionMarkers(pattern, operationNumber);
	const hasGap = patternContainsGap(pattern);
	const hasSelection = pattern.includes(SELECT_OPEN);
	if (!hasGap && !hasSelection) {
		const normalized = normalizeText(pattern).text;
		if (normalized === "") throw new Error(`Operation ${operationNumber} has no visible current text.`);
		return {
			tokens: [{ kind: "literal", text: pattern, normalized }],
			selectionStart: 0,
			selectionEnd: 1,
			insertion: false,
			lineInsertion: false,
			selectedCaptureIndices: [],
			selectionRanges: [],
			selectionPairs: [],
			literalFallback: undefined,
		};
	}

	const tokens: PatternToken[] = [];
	let literal = "";
	let captureCount = 0;
	const selectionBoundaries: number[] = [];
	const selectionAtLineStart: boolean[] = [];

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

Include actual visible code text in the pattern (e.g. a statement or identifier from the file).
If the pattern intentionally spans a region, add a `...` gap marker between the anchors.
If the pattern is meant to insert into a position, wrap the insertion point with selection markers `«` `»`.

Example fix

// before
const pattern = "   ";
// after
const pattern = "return computeTotal(items);";

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (pattern.trim() !== "" && !/\S/.test(pattern)) throw new Error("pattern has no visible text");
// simpler: ensure some non-whitespace, non-marker content exists before calling the edit API
if (!/[\p{L}\p{N}_$]/u.test(pattern.replace(/«|»|\.\.\./g, ""))) {
  throw new Error("pattern must contain visible text, a gap (...), or a selection");
}

Type guard

function hasVisiblePatternText(pattern: string): boolean {
  const stripped = pattern.replace(/«|»|\.\.\./g, "");
  return stripped.trim().length > 0;
}

Try / catch

try {
  await applySloppyEdit({ pattern });
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof Error && err.message.includes("no visible current text")) {
    // rebuild pattern with a real anchor line from the file
  }
  throw err;
}

Prevention

Always anchor patterns on at least one real line copied from the file.
Never build patterns from whitespace-only or comment-only lines.
When generating patterns programmatically, assert the interpolated snippet is non-empty.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the sloppy edit operation with a pattern that is only whitespace, only comment markers, or only indentation between markers, without a `...` gap or `«...»` selection. E.g. pattern `" "` or `"//"` passes the empty-pattern check but fails normalizeText producing an empty normalized string.

Common situations: Hand-copying a pattern that is purely indentation or blank lines from an editor; building patterns programmatically where the gap marker variable ends up empty; pasting a region where the intended anchor line is a whitespace-only line.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7e9900116c209b80. Report an issue: GitHub.