remote commit message unauthorized. Run `f auth` to login.

Error message

remote commit message unauthorized. Run `f auth` to login.

What it means

Thrown when the remote (myflow) commit-message endpoint responds with HTTP 401 Unauthorized, indicating the user's auth token is missing, expired, or invalid. The message explicitly directs the user to `f auth` to re-login.

Source

Thrown at src/commit.rs:13014

    ))
    .context("failed to create HTTP client for remote commit message")?;

    let payload = json!({
        "diff": diff,
        "status": status,
        "truncated": truncated,
    });

    let response = client
        .post(&url)
        .bearer_auth(token)
        .json(&payload)
        .send()
        .context("failed to request remote commit message")?;

    if !response.status().is_success() {
        if response.status() == StatusCode::UNAUTHORIZED {
            bail!("remote commit message unauthorized. Run `f auth` to login.");
        }
        if response.status() == StatusCode::PAYMENT_REQUIRED {
            bail!(
                "remote commit message requires an active subscription. Visit myflow to subscribe."
            );
        }
        let status = response.status();
        let body = response.text().unwrap_or_default();
        bail!("remote commit message failed: HTTP {} {}", status, body);
    }

    let payload: RemoteCommitMessageResponse = response
        .json()
        .context("failed to parse remote commit message response")?;

    let message = payload.message.trim().to_string();
    if message.is_empty() {
        bail!("remote commit message was empty");

View on GitHub (pinned to a747e741ae)

Solutions

Run `f auth` to log in again and refresh the token.
Delete stale credentials and re-authenticate from scratch.
Verify the client is sending the token header correctly (check for recent auth code changes).
Check system clock if tokens are time-based and appear prematurely expired.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Check for stored credentials before calling the remote endpoint
if !auth_token_path.exists() || read_token()?.is_empty() {
    return Err(anyhow!("Not logged in. Run `f auth` first."));
}

Type guard

fn has_valid_token(token: &Option<String>) -> bool {
    token.as_deref().map(|t| !t.is_empty()).unwrap_or(false)
}

Try / catch

match result {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("unauthorized") => {
        eprintln!("Session expired. Please run `f auth` to re-login.");
        prompt_reauth()?;
    }
    other => other,
}

Prevention

Re-run `f auth` periodically; tokens expire.
Handle 401 centrally by triggering automatic re-login.
Don't delete or hand-edit the credential store file.
Detect token expiry client-side and refresh before requests.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the remote commit-message API with an expired or revoked session token, or with no token stored at all.

Common situations: Token expired after inactivity; user logged out on another machine invalidating the session; auth file deleted or corrupted; clock skew invalidating token validation.

Understand the failure class

Authentication and authorization failures — expired tokens, bad credentials, and missing scopes.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nikivdev/code@a747e741ae (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6d28fd47ec489be0. Report an issue: GitHub.