From 1dd167ebe086963767e5a9c8d15fe5503d9843d5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Codeman maintainer <noreply@anthropic.com>
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:48:38 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix(story-mode): a bare repository with flags first is no new
 project repository, and an error is no empty answer

`git init -q --bare ../origin.git` (flags before --bare) counted as Claude
starting the project's repository. And a last step that printed a usage
message or an error (`error: unknown option`, `grep: x: No such file`)
read as "the last check finds nothing"; it now fails, as it did.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 src/story-mode.ts       | 10 ++++++++--
 test/story-mode.test.ts |  9 ++++++++-
 2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/story-mode.ts b/src/story-mode.ts
index f43f26c2..228a6629 100644
--- a/src/story-mode.ts
+++ b/src/story-mode.ts
@@ -2307,7 +2307,13 @@ function checkName(e: StoryEvent | undefined): string {
 const EMPTY_ANSWER_STEP = /(?:^|[;&|]\s*)(?:e?grep|fgrep|rg|git config|test|\[|which|command -v)\s[^;&|]*$/;
 const emptyAnswer = (e: StoryEvent): boolean => {
   const out = e.output ?? '';
-  return e.ok === false && /^Exit code 1\n\s*\S/.test(out) && EMPTY_ANSWER_STEP.test(e.label.trim());
+  // A usage message or an error is a step that went wrong, not an empty answer.
+  return (
+    e.ok === false &&
+    /^Exit code 1\n\s*\S/.test(out) &&
+    !/^\s*(usage|error|fatal|grep):/im.test(out) &&
+    EMPTY_ANSWER_STEP.test(e.label.trim())
+  );
 };
 
 /** One or two files by name ("calc.py and test_calc.py"), more by count ("3 files"). */
@@ -2717,7 +2723,7 @@ function decorate(draft: DraftPanel, events: StoryEvent[], turn: StoryTurn, inde
       const earlier = events.slice(0, firstAt);
       const startsRepo =
         !earlier.some((e) => (e.commits ?? 0) > 0) &&
-        [...earlier, ...evs].some((e) => e.tool === 'Bash' && /\bgit init\b(?!\s+--bare)/.test(e.label));
+        [...earlier, ...evs].some((e) => e.tool === 'Bash' && /\bgit init\b(?![^;&|\n]*\s--bare\b)/.test(e.label));
       const lead = [
         startsRepo ? 'starts a git repository' : '',
         wrote.length ? `writes ${fileWords(wrote)}` : '',
diff --git a/test/story-mode.test.ts b/test/story-mode.test.ts
index 2226cde7..70884e06 100644
--- a/test/story-mode.test.ts
+++ b/test/story-mode.test.ts
@@ -1003,6 +1003,13 @@ describe('buildStoryPage', () => {
     expect(run('./deploy.sh; which deploy', 'Exit code 2\nno target')).toBe('Claude tries a command, and it fails.');
     expect(run('node a.js; grep -q x a.txt', 'Exit code 1')).toBe('Claude tries a command, and it fails.');
     expect(run('git config user.name; ./deploy.sh', 'Exit code 1\nme')).toBe('Claude tries a command, and it fails.');
+    // A usage message or an error from that last step is not an empty answer.
+    expect(
+      run('node a.js; git config --nope', "Exit code 1\nok\nerror: unknown option `nope'\nusage: git config")
+    ).toBe('Claude tries a command, and it fails.');
+    expect(run('node a.js; grep x missing.txt', 'Exit code 1\nok\ngrep: missing.txt: No such file or directory')).toBe(
+      'Claude tries a command, and it fails.'
+    );
   });
 
   it('a problem in the last words is an open one: not history, not a negation, not a name', () => {
@@ -1082,7 +1089,7 @@ describe('buildStoryPage', () => {
     expect(
       save([
         prompt('start'),
-        ...bash('b1', 'git init --bare ../origin.git', 'Remote', ''),
+        ...bash('b1', 'git init -q --bare ../origin.git', 'Remote', ''),
         ...bash('b2', 'git commit -qm "add a"', 'Commit', ''),
         end(1000),
       ])