What causes "title must be a non-empty string" in tinyhumansai/openhuman?

Write a short imperative title, e.g. "Move channels providers behind gate"

tinyhumansai/openhuman · error · SpecError

title must be a non-empty string

Error message

title must be a non-empty string

What it means

agent.title must be a string that is non-empty after trim() — it becomes the PR/issue human-readable summary, so blank or whitespace-only titles are rejected. Path is "agents[i].title". Note the check is trim-based, so a title of " " fails but a title with internal spaces is fine.

Source

Thrown at scripts/agent-batch/lib.mjs:114

    }
    if (typeof agent.id !== "string" || !/^a\d{2,3}$/.test(agent.id)) {
      throw new SpecError(
        `id must match /^a\\d{2,3}$/ (got "${agent.id}")`,
        `${at}.id`,
      );
    }
    if (seenId.has(agent.id))
      throw new SpecError(`duplicate id "${agent.id}"`, `${at}.id`);
    seenId.add(agent.id);
    if (!Number.isInteger(agent.issue) || agent.issue <= 0) {
      throw new SpecError("issue must be a positive integer", `${at}.issue`);
    }
    if (seenIssue.has(agent.issue)) {
      throw new SpecError(`duplicate issue #${agent.issue}`, `${at}.issue`);
    }
    seenIssue.add(agent.issue);
    if (typeof agent.title !== "string" || agent.title.trim().length === 0) {
      throw new SpecError("title must be a non-empty string", `${at}.title`);
    }
    const m = BRANCH_RE.exec(agent.branch);
    if (!m) {
      throw new SpecError(
        `branch must match cursor/<id>-<issue>-<slug> (got "${agent.branch}")`,
        `${at}.branch`,
      );
    }
    if (m[1] !== agent.id) {
      throw new SpecError(
        `branch id segment "${m[1]}" does not match agent id "${agent.id}"`,
        `${at}.branch`,
      );
    }
    if (Number(m[2]) !== agent.issue) {
      throw new SpecError(
        `branch issue segment "${m[2]}" does not match agent issue ${agent.issue}`,
        `${at}.branch`,

View on GitHub (pinned to a221052e0d)

Solutions

Write a short imperative title, e.g. "Move channels providers behind gate"
Ensure the JSON value is a non-empty string (not null/number)
If generating specs, default titles from the issue title before validating

Example fix

// before
{ "id": "a01", "title": "", ... }

// after
{ "id": "a01", "title": "Fix CI timeout under load", ... }

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

for (const [i, a] of spec.agents.entries()) {
  if (typeof a.title !== "string" || a.title.trim().length === 0) {
    console.error(`agents[${i}].title must be non-empty`);
    process.exit(1);
  }
}

Type guard

/** @param {unknown} v */
function isNonEmptyTitle(v) {
  return typeof v === "string" && v.trim().length > 0;
}

Try / catch

try {
  validateSpec(spec);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof SpecError && e.path?.endsWith(".title")) {
    console.error(`write a title for ${e.path}: ${e.message}`);
    process.exit(1);
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

Default titles from the GitHub issue title when generating specs
Fill titles in as you add agents rather than backfilling at the end

When it happens

Trigger: "title": "", "title": " ", title omitted as undefined (caught earlier as missing field), or a non-string title like 42.

Common situations: Placeholder titles left blank when the spec was drafted; copy-paste that kept only whitespace; generators writing null or empty strings for missing summaries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of tinyhumansai/openhuman@a221052e0d (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a9d7755a5264bdf4. Report an issue: GitHub.