What causes "nothing selected" in charmbracelet/gum?

Handle the non-zero exit as 'user cancelled' and branch accordingly in your script

nothing selected

Error message

nothing selected

What it means

gum choose returns this error when the bubbletea program exits without a submission — the user quit or pressed esc/ctrl-c instead of confirming a selection. The model's `submitted` flag was false at the end of Run.

Source

Thrown at choose/command.go:158

		help:              help.New(),
		keymap:            km,
	}

	ctx, cancel := timeout.Context(o.Timeout)
	defer cancel()

	// Disable Keybindings since we will control it ourselves.
	tm, err := tea.NewProgram(
		m,
		tea.WithOutput(os.Stderr),
		tea.WithContext(ctx),
	).Run()
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to pick selection: %w", err)
	}
	m = tm.(model)
	if !m.submitted {
		return errors.New("nothing selected")
	}
	if o.Ordered && o.Limit > 1 {
		sort.Slice(m.items, func(i, j int) bool {
			return m.items[i].order < m.items[j].order
		})
	}

	var out []string
	for _, item := range m.items {
		if item.selected {
			out = append(out, options[item.text])
		}
	}
	tty.Println(strings.Join(out, o.OutputDelimiter))
	return nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4d089f9550)

Solutions

Handle the non-zero exit as 'user cancelled' and branch accordingly in your script
Check for available choices so users can actually select something
Consider whether esc/ctrl-c keys are mapped for submission if headless behavior is needed

Example fix

// before
choice=$(gum choose a b c) || exit 1
// after
choice=$(gum choose a b c) || { echo "cancelled"; exit 0; }

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

null

Type guard

null

Try / catch

if ! choice=$(gum choose a b c); then
  echo 'user cancelled selection'
  exit 0
fi
printf '%s\n' "$choice"

Prevention

Always check gum's exit status rather than assuming a selection
Decide upfront how cancellations should be handled in scripts
In Go, wrap Options.Run() and inspect errors.New("nothing selected") via errors.Is/compare

When it happens

Trigger: tea.Program.Run() completes, tm is cast to model, and m.submitted is false — i.e. the user dismissed the picker without choosing (esc, ctrl-c, or q depending on keymap).

Common situations: Users pressing Esc/Ctrl-C in interactive scripts; CI or non-TTY environments aborting the TUI; timeouts killing the program.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of charmbracelet/gum@4d089f9550 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c6c374cc3506be61. Report an issue: GitHub.