charmbracelet/gum · error

nothing selected

Error message

nothing selected

What it means

gum filter returns this when the bubbletea filter program exits with m.submitted == false — the user quit without confirming a selection (esc/ctrl-c). Like gum choose, Run treats this as an error rather than returning an empty result.

Source

Thrown at filter/command.go:153

			}
			if o.Limit == 1 {
				m.cursor = i
				m.selected[option.Str] = struct{}{}
			} else {
				currentSelected++
				m.selected[option.Str] = struct{}{}
			}
		}
	}

	tm, err := tea.NewProgram(m, options...).Run()
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to run filter: %w", err)
	}

	m = tm.(model)
	if !m.submitted {
		return errors.New("nothing selected")
	}

	// allSelections contains values only if limit is greater
	// than 1 or if flag --no-limit is passed, hence there is
	// no need to further checks
	if len(m.selected) > 0 {
		o.checkSelected(m)
	} else if len(m.matches) > m.cursor && m.cursor >= 0 {
		tty.Println(m.matches[m.cursor].Str)
	}

	return nil
}

func (o Options) checkSelected(m model) {
	out := make([]string, 0, len(m.selected))
	for k := range m.selected {
		out = append(out, k)

View on GitHub (pinned to 4d089f9550)

Solutions

1. Handle non-zero exit as cancellation in your script
2. Give users enough time (raise --timeout) and a working TTY environment
3. Provide a default/fallback value when no selection is made

Example fix

// before
sel=$(gum filter a b c) || exit 1
// after
sel=$(gum filter a b c) || sel=default

null

null

if ! sel=$(gum filter a b c); then
  sel="default"
fi

When it happens

Trigger: After tea.Program.Run() succeeds (filter path), tm cast to model has submitted == false, i.e. no confirmed selection was made.

Common situations: Users pressing Esc/Ctrl-C while filtering; non-TTY/CI runs aborting the prompt; timeouts closing the program before the user submits.

Related errors

• nothing selected
• no file selected
• no options provided, see `gum filter --help`
• no options provided, see `gum choose --help`
• invalid option format: %q

AI-assisted analysis of charmbracelet/gum@4d089f9550 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0ff9cc8f1f0482e7. Report an issue: GitHub.