jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · EmptyResultError

Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zv

Error message

Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zvi", "eliezer-yudkowsky")

What it means

resolveUserId looks up a LessWrong user by slug via GraphQL; if the response has no user._id, it throws EmptyResultError with a hint that LessWrong slugs are lowercase. This means the supplied username did not resolve to any user.

Source

Thrown at clis/lesswrong/_helpers.js:66

    }
  }`;
    const data = await gqlRequest(query);
    const tag = data?.tags?.results?.[0];
    if (!tag?._id || !tag?.name)
        return null;
    return { _id: tag._id, name: tag.name };
}
export function resolveUserId(slug) {
    const normalized = gqlEscape(slug.toLowerCase());
    const query = `query UserProfile {
    user(input: {selector: {slug: "${normalized}"}}) {
      result { _id displayName slug }
    }
  }`;
    return gqlRequest(query).then((data) => {
        const user = data?.user?.result;
        if (!user?._id) {
            throw new EmptyResultError(`lesswrong user ${slug}`, 'Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zvi", "eliezer-yudkowsky")');
        }
        return { _id: user._id, displayName: (user.displayName ?? '') };
    });
}
export function parsePostId(urlOrId) {
    const trimmed = urlOrId.trim();
    const match = trimmed.match(/posts\/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/);
    return match ? match[1] : trimmed;
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Lowercase the username and replace spaces with hyphens (slug form)
2. Verify the slug by visiting lesswrong.com/users/<slug> or the profile page URL
3. Check for typos in the username
4. If account was renamed/deleted, find the new slug from their posts or search

Example fix

// before
const slug = username; // "Zvi"
// after
const slug = username.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g, '-'); // "zvi"

function toLwSlug(name){ const s = String(name).trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,'-'); if(!/^[a-z0-9-]+$/.test(s)) throw new Error('invalid LessWrong slug'); return s; }

const isResolvedUser = (d) => typeof d?._id === 'string' && d._id.length > 0;

try {
  const user = await resolveUserId(rawName);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'EmptyResultError') {
    const slug = rawName.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g, '-');
    return resolveUserId(slug); // retry with slug form
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the lesswrong user/resolve flow with a username whose slug does not exist, or with mixed case / spaces / display name instead of the URL slug, so data.user.result comes back null.

Common situations: Passing 'Zvi' instead of 'zvi'; using a display name like 'Eliezer Yudkowsky' instead of 'eliezer-yudkowsky'; typos; deleted or renamed accounts.

Understand the failure class

Background: "User not found", "Invalid user", and "does not exist": what missing-user lookup errors mean across Rocket.Chat, LiteLLM, Phabricator, rustfs, and pnpm — this error's family across 10 libraries.

Related errors

• lesswrong user ${String(kwargs.username)}: Check the usernam
• lesswrong comments: Post "${postId}" not found
• lesswrong read: Post "${postId}" not found
• lesswrong tag ${tagInput}: Use "opencli lesswrong tags" to l
• dongchedi search "${keyword}": No car series matched. Try th

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d983edb268295486. Report an issue: GitHub.