coleam00/Archon · error · DeviceFlowError

${data.error}

Error message

${data.error}

What it means

startDeviceFlow requests a device and user code from GitHub's OAuth device-flow endpoint. When GitHub responds with an `error` field (e.g. invalid client_id), the library throws DeviceFlowError carrying that exact error code so the caller can surface the OAuth failure verbatim.

Source

Thrown at packages/core/src/github-auth/device-flow.ts:90

      const body = (await res.json()) as { error_description?: string; error?: string };
      detail = body.error_description ?? body.error ?? '';
    } catch {
      // Body was not JSON — fall back to the status line only.
    }
    throw new DeviceFlowError(
      'http_error',
      `GitHub device flow returned HTTP ${res.status}${detail ? `: ${detail}` : ''}`
    );
  }
  return (await res.json()) as T;
}

/** Step 1: request device + user codes. */
export async function startDeviceFlow(clientId: string): Promise<DeviceCodeResponse> {
  const data = await postForm<DeviceCodeResponse & { error?: string }>(DEVICE_CODE_URL, {
    client_id: clientId,
  });
  if (data.error) throw new DeviceFlowError(data.error);
  return data;
}

export interface PollOptions {
  signal?: AbortSignal;
  /** Injectable sleep for deterministic tests. */
  sleep?: (ms: number) => Promise<void>;
}

const defaultSleep = (ms: number): Promise<void> => new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));

/**
 * Step 2: poll until the user authorizes. Handles `authorization_pending`
 * (keep waiting) and `slow_down` (back off using the server-supplied interval).
 * Any other `error` is terminal and thrown as a DeviceFlowError.
 */
export async function pollDeviceFlow(
  clientId: string,

View on GitHub (pinned to 0773b97458)

Solutions

1. Verify GITHUB_CLIENT_ID matches the OAuth App / GitHub App client ID in developer settings
2. Catch DeviceFlowError and print its code against GitHub's device-flow error docs (e.g. incorrect_client_id)
3. Re-create the OAuth app if it was deleted or suspended
4. Retry later if GitHub is having an incident

Example fix

// before
await startDeviceFlow(process.env.MY_APP_ID!);
// after
const clientId = process.env.GITHUB_CLIENT_ID;
if (!clientId) throw new Error('GITHUB_CLIENT_ID not set');
await startDeviceFlow(clientId);

if (!clientId || !/^[A-Za-z0-9]+$/.test(clientId)) throw new Error('Invalid GITHUB_CLIENT_ID before starting device flow');

try { const dc = await startDeviceFlow(clientId); } catch (e) { if (e instanceof DeviceFlowError) { console.error(`GitHub device code request failed: ${e.code}`); } throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling startDeviceFlow(clientId) when the GitHub token POST to DEVICE_CODE_URL returns a JSON body with an `error` property (device code endpoint rejects the request).

Common situations: Misconfigured or revoked OAuth App client ID; client ID copied from the wrong app; GitHub outages returning error payloads; network proxies injecting error responses.

Related errors

• ${result.code}
• Authentication failed for ${owner}/${repo}. ${authHint}
• aborted
• Copilot authentication failed: ${combined} Run `copilot log
• Repository ${owner}/${repo} not found or is private. Check r

AI-assisted analysis of coleam00/Archon@0773b97458 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1a06045a871ec280. Report an issue: GitHub.