kovidgoyal/kitty · warning

Too few arguments to remote_control function

Error message

Too few arguments to remote_control function

What it means

The remote_control action parsed to zero arguments after shlex parsing; kitty logs but returns the empty arg list, so the action has nothing to dispatch.

Source

Thrown at kitty/options/utils.py:350

    if len(r) < 3:
        log_error('Too few arguments to pipe function')
        r = ['none', 'none', 'true']
    return func, r


@func_with_args('set_colors')
def set_colors(func: str, rest: str) -> FuncArgsType:
    r = list(shlex_split(rest))
    if len(r) < 1:
        log_error('Too few arguments to set_colors function')
    return func, r


@func_with_args('remote_control')
def remote_control(func: str, rest: str) -> FuncArgsType:
    func, args = shlex_parse(func, rest)
    if len(args) < 1:
        log_error('Too few arguments to remote_control function')
    return func, args


@func_with_args('remote_control_script')
def remote_control_script(func: str, rest: str) -> FuncArgsType:
    func, args = shlex_parse(func, rest)
    if len(args) < 1:
        log_error('Too few arguments to remote_control_script function')
    return func, args


@func_with_args('nth_os_window', 'nth_window', 'visual_window_select_action_trigger', 'next_layout')
def single_integer_arg(func: str, rest: str) -> FuncArgsType:
    try:
        num = int(rest)
    except Exception:
        if rest:
            log_error(f'Invalid number for {func}: {rest}')

View on GitHub (pinned to 6d5d0c4406)

Solutions

1. Provide the full remote control payload, e.g. `map f1 remote_control set-colors --all foreground=red`
2. Verify quoting so the command line survives shlex splitting

Example fix

# before
map f1 remote_control
# after
map f1 remote_control set-colors --all foreground=red

import shlex
ok = len(shlex.split('set-colors --all foreground=red')) >= 1

When it happens

Trigger: `map f1 remote_control` with no sub-command string, or arguments that shlex_parse reduces to nothing.

Common situations: Forgetting the remote control command and its arguments in the map definition.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• Too few arguments to remote_control_script function
• Passwords are not allowed to start with hyphens, ignoring th
• Cannot use forward_remote_control=yes without share_connecti
• Unknown signal: {rest} ignoring
• Invalid change_font_size specification: {rest}, treating it

AI-assisted analysis of kovidgoyal/kitty@6d5d0c4406 (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/66f50efcede1466c. Report an issue: GitHub.