windmill-labs/windmill · error

Instructions are required

Error message

Instructions are required

What it means

Thrown by sendInlineRequest in AIChatManager when the inline-edit instruction is empty or whitespace-only. Inline requests send a prompt plus a code selection to the model; with no instructions there is no request to make, so the input is rejected before creating an abort controller or any request state.

Source

Thrown at frontend/src/lib/components/copilot/chat/AIChatManager.svelte.ts:2780

					value: result.tokenUsage.total,
					workspace: this.operatingWorkspace
				})
			}
			return result
		} catch (err) {
			console.log('chatRequest error', err)
			console.error('chatRequest error', err)
			callbacks.onMessageEnd()
			this.cancelLoadingTools('Error')
			if (!abortController.signal.aborted) {
				throw err
			}
		}
	}

	sendInlineRequest = async (instructions: string, selectedCode: string, selection: Selection) => {
		// Validate inputs
		if (!instructions.trim()) {
			throw new Error('Instructions are required')
		}
		// Use a separate abort controller for inline requests to avoid interfering with main chat
		this.inlineAbortController = new AbortController()
		const lang = this.scriptEditorOptions?.lang ?? 'bun'
		const selectedContext: ContextElement[] = [...this.contextManager.getSelectedContext()]
		const startLine = selection.startLineNumber
		const endLine = selection.endLineNumber
		selectedContext.push({
			type: 'code_piece',
			lang,
			title: `L${startLine}-L${endLine}`,
			startLine,
			endLine,
			content: selectedCode
		})

		const systemMessage: ChatCompletionSystemMessageParam = {

View on GitHub (pinned to e474e8803c)

Solutions

1. Type a non-empty instruction in the inline prompt before submitting
2. Disable the submit action while the input is empty to prevent the call
3. Trim user input client-side and treat whitespace-only as empty

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at frontend/src/lib/components/copilot/chat/AIChatManager.svelte.ts:2780 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of windmill-labs/windmill@e474e8803c (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c4e39b257db37828. Report an issue: GitHub.