What causes "failed to put terminal log (read file content): %w" in vxcontrol/pentagi?

Check database connectivity and health first

failed to put terminal log (read file content)

Error message

failed to put terminal log (read file content): %w

What it means

After successfully reading the file contents via readFileFromContainer, ReadFile records the styled content into the terminal transcript with PutMsg (TermlogTypeStdout). This error wraps a failure of that final logging write; the file was read, but the transcript could not be updated, so the read is reported as failed to preserve log integrity.

Solutions

Check database connectivity and health first
Truncate or size-limit content before PutMsg for large files
Sanitize non-UTF8 content before logging
Retry after the DB recovers; the content itself was read successfully

Example fix

// before
_, err = t.tlp.PutMsg(ctx, database.TermlogTypeStdout, styledContent, ...)
// after
styledContent = truncateString(strings.ToValidUTF8(styledContent, "?"), 50000)
_, err = t.tlp.PutMsg(ctx, database.TermlogTypeStdout, styledContent, ...)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: fallback

Validate before calling

info, err := os.Stat(localPathOrKnownSize)
if err == nil && info.Size() > maxLoggableBytes {
    return errors.New("file too large to log; read via direct copy instead")
}

Try / catch

content, err := term.ReadFile(ctx, flowID, path)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to put terminal log (read file content)") {
    // content was read; failure was persistence — retry or log-and-continue
    log.Warn("stdout termlog write failed for file content", "err", err)
}

Prevention

Limit read sizes; truncate content before PutMsg
Sanitize non-UTF8 file content before logging
Monitor DB health and payload-size constraints on termlog
Retry transient persistence errors with backoff

When it happens

Trigger: PutMsg(ctx, database.TermlogTypeStdout, styledContent, ...) fails when persisting the file content — DB connection failure, oversized payload (large file content), or encoding constraints in the termlog table.

Common situations: Reading very large files whose content exceeds storage limits; PostgreSQL outage or pool exhaustion; binary files producing invalid UTF-8 content.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of vxcontrol/pentagi@ea665308ba (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bb3781862ff1c035. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at backend/pkg/tools/terminal.go:353

	escapedPath := strings.ReplaceAll(path, "'", "'\"'\"'")
	catCommand := fmt.Sprintf("cat '%s'", escapedPath)
	// Format read file command with styling
	styledCommand := fmt.Sprintf("%s $ %s%s%s%s", cwd, ansiColorInputCmd, catCommand, ansiColorReset, ansiLineTerminator)
	_, err := t.tlp.PutMsg(ctx, database.TermlogTypeStdin, styledCommand, t.containerID, t.taskID, t.subtaskID)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to put terminal log (read file cmd): %w", err)
	}

	content, err := t.readFileFromContainer(ctx, flowID, path)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}

	// Style file content output
	styledContent := fmt.Sprintf("%s%s%s%s", ansiColorSystemMsg, content, ansiColorReset, ansiLineTerminator)
	_, err = t.tlp.PutMsg(ctx, database.TermlogTypeStdout, styledContent, t.containerID, t.taskID, t.subtaskID)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to put terminal log (read file content): %w", err)
	}

	return content, nil
}

// readFileFromContainer copies path out of the flow's container and returns
// its content. It performs no terminal-log writes, so callers that need the
// content only as an intermediate step (e.g. EditFile, before reapplying a
// diff and writing back) don't echo a spurious "cat" transcript entry.
func (t *terminal) readFileFromContainer(ctx context.Context, flowID int64, path string) (string, error) {
	containerName := PrimaryTerminalName(t.tenantPrefix, flowID)

	isRunning, err := t.dockerClient.IsContainerRunning(ctx, t.containerLID)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("runtime verification failed: %w", err)
	}
	if !isRunning {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("container runtime is not operational")

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