plandex-ai/plandex · error

no commitMsg tag found in XML response

Error message

no commitMsg tag found in XML response

What it means

When the CommitMsg model is configured with XML preferred output format, genPlanDescription extracts the commit message from a <commitMsg> tag in the model's reply via utils.GetXMLContent. If the model's response lacks that tag (or it's empty), the server treats it as an invalid response and returns a 500 ApiError.

Source

Thrown at app/server/model/plan/commit_msg.go:132

		go notify.NotifyErr(notify.SeverityError, fmt.Errorf("error during plan description model call: %v", err))

		return nil, &shared.ApiError{
			Type:   shared.ApiErrorTypeOther,
			Status: http.StatusInternalServerError,
			Msg:    fmt.Sprintf("error during plan description model call: %v", err),
		}
	}

	log.Println("Plan description model call complete")

	content := modelRes.Content

	var commitMsg string

	if baseModelConfig.PreferredOutputFormat == shared.ModelOutputFormatXml {
		commitMsg = utils.GetXMLContent(content, "commitMsg")
		if commitMsg == "" {
			go notify.NotifyErr(notify.SeverityError, fmt.Errorf("no commitMsg tag found in XML response"))

			return nil, &shared.ApiError{
				Type:   shared.ApiErrorTypeOther,
				Status: http.StatusInternalServerError,
				Msg:    "No commitMsg tag found in XML response",
			}
		}
	} else {

		if content == "" {
			fmt.Println("no describePlan function call found in response")

			go notify.NotifyErr(notify.SeverityError, fmt.Errorf("no describePlan function call found in response"))

			return nil, &shared.ApiError{
				Type:   shared.ApiErrorTypeOther,
				Status: http.StatusInternalServerError,
				Msg:    "No describePlan function call found in response. The model failed to generate a valid response.",

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Switch the CommitMsg model config to the plain (function-call/JSON) output format instead of XML
2. Use a stronger instruction-following model for commit messages
3. Increase max_tokens so the response isn't truncated before the closing tag
4. Re-run — LLM output is non-deterministic, a retry often produces the tag

Example fix

// before: XML format on a weak local model
"CommitMsg": {"PreferredOutputFormat": "xml", "ModelName": "tiny-7b"}
// after: let the model use tool-call format
"CommitMsg": {"PreferredOutputFormat": "default", "ModelName": "gpt-4o-mini"}

// check the model's raw output before relying on it
msg := utils.GetXMLContent(content, "commitMsg")
if msg == "" {
    log.Printf("model did not emit commitMsg tag; raw: %.200s", content)
}

desc, apiErr := genPlanDescription(...)
if apiErr != nil && strings.Contains(apiErr.Msg, "commitMsg tag") {
    // fallback: synthesize a commit message locally or retry once
    return fallbackCommitMsg(planId), nil
}

When it happens

Trigger: The model configured for commit messages ignores the SysDescribeXml prompt and replies in free text, Markdown, or a different tag name; the response was truncated by a low max_tokens setting; a weaker/quantized local model fails to follow the XML format.

Common situations: Custom model packs pointing at small local models (Ollama/llama.cpp) that don't reliably emit XML; switching PreferredOutputFormat to xml on a model that isn't instruction-tuned for it; temperature/top_p settings making format adherence erratic.

Related errors

• No name tag found in XML response
• error unmarshalling plan description response: %v
• execStatusShouldContinue: missing required XML tags in respo
• client not found for provider composite: %s
• error creating chat completion stream: %w

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f580f5db620586ae. Report an issue: GitHub.