Refusing to terminate invalid detached owner PID ${String(pi

Error message

Refusing to terminate invalid detached owner PID ${String(pid)}

What it means

Error "Refusing to terminate invalid detached owner PID ${String(pid)}" thrown in coleam00/Archon.

Source

Thrown at packages/cli/src/utils/detached-run-control.ts:506

 * carries neither. Nothing here reads message text, so it holds under any locale.
 *
 * Exported for testing: the Windows termination path tolerates a completed-but-failed
 * command and must never tolerate an interrupted one, and that decision cannot be
 * exercised from a platform where the path does not run.
 */
export function commandTerminatedBySignal(error: unknown): boolean {
  if (typeof error !== 'object' || error === null) return false;
  const { killed, signal } = error as { killed?: unknown; signal?: unknown };
  return killed === true || typeof signal === 'string';
}

/** Terminate the process tree while its exact-run owner holds the IPC lease open. */
async function terminateDetachedProcessTree(
  pid: number,
  ownsLiveLease: () => boolean
): Promise<void> {
  if (!Number.isInteger(pid) || pid <= 0 || pid === process.pid) {
    throw new Error(`Refusing to terminate invalid detached owner PID ${String(pid)}`);
  }
  if (!ownsLiveLease()) {
    throw new Error(`Detached workflow owner ${String(pid)} released its termination lease`);
  }

  if (process.platform === 'win32') {
    // `taskkill /T` walks the tree PID by PID and exits non-zero when any of them is
    // already gone — the outcome this function wants, reached early. Nothing in that
    // exit code separates it from a kill that genuinely failed, so it is not the
    // proof: the confirmation below is, the same way the POSIX branch tolerates ESRCH
    // and then re-checks. A tree that is still running throws there, carrying the
    // command's own error as the evidence.
    //
    // A walk that never finished is a different case and is rethrown here. The root
    // check can only stand in for the whole tree when every descendant was visited,
    // and a `timeout` kill leaves taskkill part-way through: the root can be gone
    // while a descendant the walk never reached is still alive. `/T` is what takes
    // the descendants with the root, and that they actually die is proved by the

View on GitHub (pinned to 0773b97458)

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/cli/src/utils/detached-run-control.ts:506 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of coleam00/Archon@0773b97458 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2380765a99cd976a. Report an issue: GitHub.