jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · EmptyResultError

lesswrong user ${String(kwargs.username)}: Check the usernam

Error message

lesswrong user ${String(kwargs.username)}: Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zvi", "eliezer-yudkowsky")

What it means

lesswrong user queries the GraphQL user endpoint for the given username; when data.user.result has no _id it throws EmptyResultError with the lowercase-slug hint. The username supplied did not resolve to a user profile.

Source

Thrown at clis/lesswrong/user.js:32

            name: 'username',
            type: 'string',
            required: true,
            positional: true,
            help: 'LessWrong username or slug',
        },
    ],
    columns: ['field', 'value'],
    func: async (kwargs) => {
        const slug = gqlEscape(String(kwargs.username).toLowerCase());
        const query = `query UserProfile {
      user(input: {selector: {slug: "${slug}"}}) {
        result { _id displayName slug bio karma postCount commentCount createdAt }
      }
    }`;
        const data = await gqlRequest(query);
        const user = data?.user?.result;
        if (!user?._id) {
            throw new EmptyResultError(`lesswrong user ${String(kwargs.username)}`, 'Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zvi", "eliezer-yudkowsky")');
        }
        return [
            { field: 'Name', value: user.displayName ?? '' },
            { field: 'Username', value: user.slug ?? '' },
            { field: 'Karma', value: user.karma ?? 0 },
            { field: 'Posts', value: user.postCount ?? 0 },
            { field: 'Comments', value: user.commentCount ?? 0 },
            { field: 'Joined', value: user.createdAt ?? '' },
            { field: 'Bio', value: stripHtml(user.bio ?? '') },
            { field: 'URL', value: `https://${DOMAIN}/users/${user.slug}` },
        ];
    },
});

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Convert the username to a lowercase hyphenated slug before calling
2. Confirm the slug from the user's profile URL on lesswrong.com
3. Check the account still exists and was not renamed or deleted
4. Retry in case of a transient GraphQL failure

Example fix

// before
await lesswrongUser('Eliezer Yudkowsky');
// after
await lesswrongUser('eliezer-yudkowsky');

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 isUser = (d) => typeof d?.user?.result?._id === 'string';

try {
  await lesswrongUser(username);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'EmptyResultError') {
    return lesswrongUser(username.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g, '-'));
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: lesswrong user called with a non-slug form (mixed case, spaces, display name), a nonexistent username, or a deleted account, so the GraphQL user lookup returns null result.

Common situations: Typing a display name ('Rob Bensinger') instead of the slug ('rob-bensinger'); capitalization ('Raemon' vs 'raemon'); user deactivated their account; typo in the handle.

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

• Check the username — LessWrong slugs are lowercase (e.g. "zv
• 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/c549284ab5c01ce1. Report an issue: GitHub.