deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness · error · Error

subprocess-e2b: remote environment is not valid UTF-8

Error message

subprocess-e2b: remote environment is not valid UTF-8

What it means

Error "subprocess-e2b: remote environment is not valid UTF-8" thrown in deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness.

Source

Thrown at packages/e2b/subprocess-e2b/src/environment.ts:47

  // TODO(e2b-replace-environment): Remove this ambient probe when E2B can start
  // a command with a replacement environment instead of merged overrides.
  const result = await sandbox.commands.run(
    'set -o pipefail; dsh_e2b_passwd="$(getent passwd "$(id -u)")"; IFS=: read -r _ _ _ _ _ dsh_e2b_home _ <<<"$dsh_e2b_passwd"; test -n "$dsh_e2b_home" -a -d "$dsh_e2b_home"; printf \'%s\' "$dsh_e2b_home" | base64 -w 0; printf \'\\n\'; env -0 | base64 -w 0',
    { envs: e2bControlEnvs(), ...(signal === undefined ? {} : { signal }) },
  )
  const lines = result.stdout.trim().split('\n')
  if (lines.length !== 2 || !lines.every(line => BASE64.test(line))) {
    throw new Error('subprocess-e2b: remote environment transport returned invalid base64')
  }
  const [encodedHome, encodedEnvironment] = lines as [string, string]
  let home: string
  let raw: string
  try {
    const decoder = new TextDecoder('utf-8', { fatal: true })
    home = decoder.decode(Buffer.from(encodedHome, 'base64'))
    raw = decoder.decode(Buffer.from(encodedEnvironment, 'base64'))
  } catch (error: unknown) {
    throw new Error('subprocess-e2b: remote environment is not valid UTF-8', { cause: error })
  }
  if (!posix.isAbsolute(home) || home.includes('\0')) {
    throw new Error(`subprocess-e2b: remote login home is invalid: ${JSON.stringify(home)}`)
  }
  const environment = new Map(remoteEnvironmentEntries(raw))
  environment.set('HOME', home)
  return [...environment].map(([name, value]) => `${name}=${value}\0`).join('')
}

/**
 * Parse an E2B NUL-delimited environment while removing harness-private and credential-shaped names.
 * @param raw - The complete NUL-delimited remote environment.
 * @returns Mutable retained entries for the caller to overlay and serialize.
 */
export function scrubRemoteEnvironment(raw: string): Map<string, string> {
  const environment = new Map<string, string>()
  for (const [name, value] of remoteEnvironmentEntries(raw)) {
    if (name.startsWith('DSH_') || SENSITIVE_ENV_PATTERN.test(name)) continue

View on GitHub (pinned to b150a551b8)

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/e2b/subprocess-e2b/src/environment.ts:47 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness@b150a551b8 (2026-08-24). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b69fc271abab4320. Report an issue: GitHub.