MajorWiki/05-troubleshooting/claude-mem-setting-sources-empty-arg.md

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title	domain	category	tags	status	created	updated
claude-mem Silently Fails with Claude Code 2.1+ (Empty --setting-sources)	troubleshooting	claude-code	claude-code claude-mem cli subprocess version-mismatch shim	published	2026-04-17	2026-04-17

claude-mem Silently Fails with Claude Code 2.1+ (Empty --setting-sources)

Symptom

After installing the claude-mem plugin (v12.1.3) in Claude Code (v2.1.112), every Claude Code session starts with:

No previous sessions found for this project yet.

…even for directories where you've worked repeatedly. Session records do appear in ~/.claude-mem/claude-mem.db (table sdk_sessions), but:

• session_summaries count stays at 0
• observations count stays at 0
• Chroma vector DB stays empty

Tailing ~/.claude-mem/logs/claude-mem-YYYY-MM-DD.log shows the Stop hook firing on every assistant turn, but always:

[HOOK  ] → Stop: Requesting summary {hasLastAssistantMessage=true}
[HOOK  ] Summary processing complete {waitedMs=503, summaryStored=null}

No errors, no stack traces — just a silent null. Raising CLAUDE_MEM_LOG_LEVEL to DEBUG reveals the true error:

[WARN ] [SDK_SPAWN] Claude process exited {code=1, signal=null, pid=…}
[ERROR] [SESSION] Generator failed {provider=claude, error=Claude Code process exited with code 1}

Root cause

claude-mem 12.1.3 spawns the claude CLI as a subprocess to generate per-turn observations and session summaries. The argv it passes includes:

claude --output-format stream-json --verbose --input-format stream-json \
       --model claude-sonnet-4-6 \
       --disallowedTools Bash,Read,Write,… \
       --setting-sources \               ← no value!
       --permission-mode default

claude-mem intends to pass --setting-sources "" (empty string, meaning "no sources"). Claude Code v2.1.x now validates this flag and rejects empty values — it requires one of user, project, or local. With no value present, the CLI's argument parser consumes the next flag (--permission-mode) as the value and produces:

Error processing --setting-sources: Invalid setting source: --permission-mode.
Valid options are: user, project, local

The child process exits immediately with code 1 (within ~130 ms). claude-mem only logs exited with code 1 and discards stderr by default, which is why the failure looks silent.

This is a version-mismatch bug between claude-mem 12.1.3 (latest as of 2026-04-17) and claude-code 2.1.x. Earlier Claude Code releases accepted empty values.

Investigation path

1. Confirm worker processes are alive:

   pgrep -fl "worker-service|mcp-server.cjs|chroma-mcp"
   cat ~/.claude-mem/supervisor.json
   

2. Confirm sessions are being recorded but not summarised:

   sqlite3 ~/.claude-mem/claude-mem.db \
     "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sdk_sessions;  -- nonzero
      SELECT COUNT(*) FROM session_summaries;  -- 0 = pipeline broken
      SELECT COUNT(*) FROM observations;       -- 0 = pipeline broken"
   

3. Grep the log for summaryStored=null — if every Stop hook ends in null, summarisation is failing.
4. Raise log level to expose the real error:

   # In ~/.claude-mem/settings.json
   "CLAUDE_MEM_LOG_LEVEL": "DEBUG"
   

   Kill and respawn workers (pkill -f worker-service.cjs). New logs should show SDK_SPAWN Claude process exited {code=1}.
5. Capture the exact argv by replacing CLAUDE_CODE_PATH with a debug shim that logs $@ before exec'ing the real binary (see the fix below for the production shim — the debug version just tees argv to a log file).

The fix

Apply in this order.

1. Fix the settings claude-mem ships with empty

Edit ~/.claude-mem/settings.json:

{
  "CLAUDE_CODE_PATH": "/Users/you/.local/bin/claude-shim",
  "CLAUDE_MEM_TIER_SUMMARY_MODEL": "claude-sonnet-4-6"
}

Both ship empty in a fresh install. CLAUDE_CODE_PATH points at the shim (below), not the real binary. CLAUDE_MEM_TIER_SUMMARY_MODEL is required when CLAUDE_MEM_TIER_ROUTING_ENABLED=true.

2. Install the shim

/Users/you/.local/bin/claude-shim:

#!/bin/bash
# Workaround shim for claude-mem 12.1.3 <-> Claude Code 2.1.x incompat.
# claude-mem passes `--setting-sources` with no value; Claude CLI 2.1+ rejects
# empty and consumes the next flag as the value. Fix: inject "user" when missing.

REAL=/Users/you/.local/bin/claude

new_args=()
i=0
args=("$@")
while [ $i -lt ${#args[@]} ]; do
  cur="${args[$i]}"
  new_args+=("$cur")
  if [ "$cur" = "--setting-sources" ]; then
    next="${args[$((i+1))]}"
    case "$next" in
      user|project|local) : ;;   # already valid
      *) new_args+=("user") ;;   # inject missing value
    esac
  fi
  i=$((i+1))
done

exec "$REAL" "${new_args[@]}"

Chmod it executable: chmod +x ~/.local/bin/claude-shim.

3. Restart workers

pkill -f "worker-service.cjs --daemon"

They respawn automatically on the next Claude Code hook fire. Verify:

# Within ~15 s:
sqlite3 ~/.claude-mem/claude-mem.db "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM observations;"
# Should be growing as you continue the session.

4. Sanity-check the shim is being used

ps -eww | grep -F 'setting-sources user'

Every live claude child should have --setting-sources user in its argv, not a bare --setting-sources.

Why a shim instead of patching claude-mem

The offending code is inside the minified worker-service.cjs bundle shipped by @anthropic-ai/claude-code SDK, which claude-mem vendors. Patching the bundle is possible but fragile: any claude-mem update overwrites it. The shim is a one-file wrapper at a stable path, survives plugin updates, and becomes a no-op the moment upstream ships a fix.

When to remove the shim

Check for a newer claude-mem release or an Anthropic SDK update that stops passing --setting-sources with an empty value. Test by:

1. Point CLAUDE_CODE_PATH back at the real /Users/you/.local/bin/claude.
2. Restart workers.
3. Confirm observations count keeps growing.

If it does, remove the shim. If not, restore the shim path and wait for a later release.

Related

• Install notes: 20-Projects/Personal-Tasks.md — "Install claude-mem plugin on MajorMac — 2026-04-15"
• Config file: ~/.claude-mem/settings.json
• Logs: ~/.claude-mem/logs/claude-mem-YYYY-MM-DD.log
• DB: ~/.claude-mem/claude-mem.db (SQLite, FTS5 enabled)