What causes "Hermes cron requires a prompt." in stablyai/orca?

Require and validate a non-empty prompt in the UI/form before submitting create/update.

Hermes cron requires a prompt.

Error message

Hermes cron requires a prompt.

What it means

Thrown by normalizeHermesCronMutationInput() after trimming when input.prompt is empty. A Hermes cron job runs a prompt on a schedule, so a non-empty prompt is mandatory. The guard fires only for create/edit of Hermes crons (provider check at 756 runs first).

Source

Thrown at src/main/automations/external-manager.ts:420

      return 'rm'
  }
}

function normalizeHermesCronMutationInput(input: ExternalAutomationCreateInput): {
  name: string
  prompt: string
  schedule: string
  workdir: string | null
} {
  if (input.provider !== 'hermes') {
    throw new Error('Only Hermes cron creation and editing are supported.')
  }
  const name = input.name.trim()
  const prompt = input.prompt.trim()
  const schedule = input.schedule.trim()
  const workdir = input.workdir?.trim() || null
  if (!prompt) {
    throw new Error('Hermes cron requires a prompt.')
  }
  if (!schedule) {
    throw new Error('Hermes cron requires a schedule.')
  }
  return {
    name: name || prompt.slice(0, 50).trim() || 'Hermes cron',
    prompt,
    schedule,
    workdir
  }
}

function hermesCronCreateArgs(input: {
  name: string
  prompt: string
  schedule: string
  workdir: string | null
}): string[] {

View on GitHub (pinned to 1136503c6a)

Solutions

Require and validate a non-empty prompt in the UI/form before submitting create/update.
Coerce undefined to '' explicitly and show a validation error rather than calling the API.
For programmatic callers, assert input.prompt.trim() is non-empty upstream.

Example fix

// before
createExternalAutomation({ provider: 'hermes', prompt: '   ', schedule: '0 * * * *', ... }) // throws

// after
const prompt = rawPrompt.trim()
if (!prompt) throw new UserError('Prompt is required.')
createExternalAutomation({ provider: 'hermes', prompt, schedule: '0 * * * *', ... })

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function isNonEmptyPrompt(v: unknown): boolean {
  return typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0
}

if (input.provider === 'hermes' && !isNonEmptyPrompt(input.prompt)) {
  throw new UserError('Hermes cron needs a prompt.')
}
createExternalAutomation(input)

Type guard

function isNonEmptyString(v: unknown): v is string {
  return typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0
}

Try / catch

try {
  await createExternalAutomation(input)
} catch (e) {
  if ((e as Error).message === 'Hermes cron requires a prompt.') {
    throw new UserError('Please enter a prompt for the cron job.')
  }
  throw e
}

Prevention

Require the prompt field in the create/edit form and disable submit until non-empty.
Trim input client-side and show inline validation before calling the API.
For programmatic callers, assert input.prompt?.trim() is truthy upstream.

When it happens

Trigger: Creating or editing a Hermes cron with a blank/whitespace-only prompt field; a form that submits an empty prompt; a script defaulting prompt to '' or undefined.

Common situations: User clicks create without entering a prompt; a template failed to interpolate and produced an empty string; UI sends the field as undefined which trims to ''.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stablyai/orca@1136503c6a (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bb96b30aba6e6acd. Report an issue: GitHub.