Predictable error contract for display_message wrappers

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
30/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
python
Domain
api, cli

Research direction

Begin with Server.display_message, Window.display_message, and Pane.display_message and the existing display_message tests; reproduce the undefined-token case on tmux 3.4+ and compare success and stderr behavior. Review the warning change from #672 and observed real-use stderr before selecting a contract. Done means removing version-gated test skips, documenting escalation in MIGRATION, and adding a CHANGES entry.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

What ships

A deliberate stderr-handling semantic for the three
`display_message` wrappers (`Server.display_message`,
`Window.display_message`, `Pane.display_message`). Likely one of:

  • Version-gated raise via `has_gte_version("3.3")` (warn on tmux
    3.2a where control-mode dispatch is unreliable, raise on 3.3+)
  • A per-call `raise_on_stderr: bool = False` kwarg so callers
    opt in to escalation
  • A permanent `warnings.warn` contract with no escalation path
    beyond `warnings.catch_warnings(filterwarnings("error"))`

The choice will be driven by observed user pain — what kinds of
stderr tmux actually emits in practice, and what shape of escalation
callers reach for.

Problem solved

Callers need a way to distinguish "tmux rejected my format string"
from "tmux returned empty legitimately." #672 softened the wrappers
to `warnings.warn` because raising had two issues:

  1. tmux 3.2a's control-mode dispatch path can fail silently (no
    stderr emitted), so raising on stderr doesn't actually catch
    that bug — it just made other tests skip with
    `has_gte_version("3.3")` workarounds.
  2. tmux uses stderr for both genuine errors and informational
    messages, and the right escalation depends on tmux version and
    call shape.

The warn-soften gives users access to the stderr without losing the
return value. This issue tracks the eventual deliberate contract.

Why this is its own shipment

The right contract depends on what kinds of stderr tmux actually
emits in practice, which is observable only after the wrappers see
real use in 0.57.0. Holding the decision until that data exists
prevents locking in a contract that the next release has to break.

Acceptance criteria

  • Test asserting `display_message("#{undefined_token}")` on
    tmux 3.4+ behaves according to the chosen contract on both
    success and stderr paths
  • No `has_gte_version("3.3")` skip patches on the
    `display_message` tests
  • MIGRATION note describing how callers escalate from warn to
    exception (or rationale for permanent warn)
  • CHANGES entry for the contract change

Current state on master (post-0.57.0)

All three wrappers emit `warnings.warn("display-message: ")`
with `stacklevel=2`. Callers can already escalate via:

```python
import warnings

with warnings.catch_warnings():
warnings.filterwarnings("error", category=UserWarning)
result = pane.display_message("#{pane_id}", get_text=True)
```

The question this issue resolves is whether that escalation path
suffices, or whether the wrappers should grow a more deliberate API.

Refs

  • Carved out per the three-auditor synthesis on #672
  • Companion to #674 (typed format-token fields)
Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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