paperclipai/paperclip · error · Error

Timed out checking working directory on remote target

Error message

Timed out checking working directory on remote target: "${cwd}"

What it means

Probe timeout when preparing a remote working directory: the shell check (mkdir -p / test -d) against the SSH/sandbox target exceeded its timeout budget, so directory existence could not be established.

Solutions

1. Check remote target connectivity and retry.
2. Increase the timeout for remote working directory checks.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/adapter-utils/src/execution-target.ts:1056 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

Understand the failure class

• Timeouts: ETIMEDOUT, deadlines, and hung requests — what actually expires when a request times out.

AI-assisted analysis of paperclipai/paperclip@3f1d897a7c (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8315de199bd57436. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at packages/adapter-utils/src/execution-target.ts:1106

  try {
    result = await runAdapterExecutionTargetShellCommand(input.runId, target, trimmed, {
      cwd: target.remoteCwd,
      env: input.env ?? {},
      timeoutSec: input.timeoutSec ?? 240,
      graceSec: 10,
    });
  } catch (err) {
    return {
      code,
      level: "warn",
      message: "Install command threw before completion.",
      detail: err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err),
    };
  }
  const tail = (text: string) =>
    text.split(/\r?\n/).filter((line) => line.trim().length > 0).slice(-3).join(" | ").slice(0, 480);
  if (result.timedOut) {
    return {
      code,
      level: "warn",
      message: `Install command timed out: ${trimmed}`,
      detail: tail(result.stderr || result.stdout),
    };
  }
  if ((result.exitCode ?? 1) === 0) {
    return {
      code,
      level: "info",
      message: `Install command ran: ${trimmed}`,
      ...(tail(result.stdout) ? { detail: tail(result.stdout) } : {}),
    };
  }
  return {
    code,
    level: "warn",
    message: `Install command exited ${result.exitCode}: ${trimmed}`,

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