IRC bot crashes on inbound message due to wrong `BotMessage` field names

Author: Dhivya-BharathyCreated Sep 15, 2026Updated Sep 15, 2026

Labelsbugclaude

IRC bot crashes on inbound message due to wrong `BotMessage` field names

Repository: MervinPraison/PraisonAI
Component: praisonai-bot IRC adapter
Labels: bug, irc, priority:high
Platform observed: Windows 11, Python 3.13

Summary

The IRC bot adapter crashes when processing the first inbound channel message because it constructs BotMessage with keyword arguments text and user, but the shared message model expects content and sender. The bot connects to IRC successfully, joins the channel, but dies on the first Hi message.

Discovered during live IRC test on Libera.Chat channel ##praison-test. Fix: use correct field names in praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py.

Environment

Item	Value
OS	Windows 11
Python	3.13.2
IRC server	irc.libera.chat
Channel	##praison-test
Nickname	praison-ai-bot
Config	`irc-bot.yaml` via `praisonai bot start`

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure IRC bot

yaml

platform: irc
server: "${IRC_SERVER}"
channel: "${IRC_CHANNEL}"
nickname: "${IRC_NICKNAME}"
agent:
  name: "IRC Assistant"
  instructions: "Reply briefly."
  llm: "gpt-4o-mini"

2. Set environment and start

powershell

$env:OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."
$env:IRC_SERVER = "irc.libera.chat"
$env:IRC_CHANNEL = "##praison-test"
$env:IRC_NICKNAME = "praison-ai-bot"
praisonai bot start --config irc-bot.yaml

3. Join channel and send Hi

From another IRC client:

/join ##praison-test
Hi

Terminal evidence (crash on first message)

[INFO] Connecting to irc.libera.chat:6667
[INFO] IRC nick: praison-ai-bot
[INFO] Joining ##praison-test
[INFO] Connected and listening
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py", line 142, in _on_pubmsg
    msg = BotMessage(
          ^^^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: BotMessage.__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'text'

Process exits or enters broken state. No reply sent to channel.

Alternative traceback observed in some versions:

TypeError: BotMessage.__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'user'

Terminal evidence (after fix)

Patch IRC adapter to use:

python

BotMessage(content=text, sender=nick, ...)

Restart bot:

powershell

praisonai bot start --config irc-bot.yaml

[INFO] Connecting to irc.libera.chat:6667
[INFO] Joined ##praison-test
[INFO] Received PRIVMSG from testuser: Hi
[INFO] Routing to agent IRC Assistant
[INFO] LLM response (912ms)
[INFO] Sending PRIVMSG to ##praison-test

IRC channel shows:

<testuser> Hi
<praison-ai-bot> Hello! How can I assist you today?

Live audit result: PASS (~2s after fix).

Root cause

IRC adapter was written against an outdated or assumed BotMessage signature:

python

# Broken
BotMessage(text=message_body, user=nickname, channel=chan)

# Correct (shared model)
BotMessage(content=message_body, sender=nickname, channel=chan)

Other adapters (Telegram, Slack) already use content/sender. IRC was inconsistent.

Expected vs actual

Event	Expected	Actual (before fix)
Connect to IRC	Success	Success
Join channel	Success	Success
Receive Hi	Agent reply in channel	TypeError crash
Process stays up	Yes	No

Impact

Area	Effect
IRC channel onboarding	100% fail at first message
Channel expansion roadmap	IRC marked implemented but unusable
Unit tests	7/7 IRC unit tests passed — integration field mismatch not caught
User trust	"IRC support exists" but crashes live

Why unit tests missed it

Unit tests may mock BotMessage or test connection/join in isolation without asserting constructor kwargs against real dataclass signature.

Recommended addition:

python

def test_irc_on_pubmsg_builds_valid_bot_message():
    irc_bot._on_pubmsg(connection, event)
    assert captured_message.content == "Hi"
    assert captured_message.sender == "testuser"

Workaround

Patch praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py locally:

python

# Replace text= with content=
# Replace user= with sender=

Reinstall editable package or set PYTHONPATH to patched source.

Proposed upstream fix

Fix field names in IRC adapter.
Add integration test with real BotMessage import.
Lint rule: grep for BotMessage(text= across codebase.
Align all platform adapters to shared factory helper:

python

def make_message(content: str, sender: str, **kwargs) -> BotMessage:
    return BotMessage(content=content, sender=sender, **kwargs)

Full traceback (representative)

Exception in thread IRCBot-polling:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "threading.py", line 1041, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "threading.py", line 992, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py", line 98, in _listen_loop
    self._dispatch(event)
  File "praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py", line 130, in _dispatch
    self._on_pubmsg(conn, event)
  File "praisonai_bot/bots/irc.py", line 142, in _on_pubmsg
    msg = BotMessage(
        text=event.arguments[0],
        user=event.source.nick,
        channel=event.target,
        platform="irc",
    )
TypeError: BotMessage.__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'text'

BotMessage signature (reference)

python

@dataclass
class BotMessage:
    content: str
    sender: str
    channel: str | None = None
    platform: str = ""
    metadata: dict = field(default_factory=dict)

Any adapter using text or user will fail at runtime.

IRC-specific connection log (successful connect, failed handle)

*** Looking up irc.libera.chat
*** Connecting to irc.libera.chat (6667)
*** Connection established
*** Registering nick praison-ai-bot
*** Joining ##praison-test
*** praison-ai-bot joined ##praison-test

Then user message triggers crash — channel sees bot join then go quiet.

Verification checklist

IRC bot survives first PRIVMSG
Reply appears in channel within 5s
No TypeError in logs
All platform adapters use shared message factory
Integration test in CI

Severity

High — IRC feature completely non-functional in live use despite passing unit tests and startup checks.

Audit notes

Metric	Value
Steps to IRC first reply	7
Time to connect	~5s
Time to crash	immediate on first Hi
Time to pass after fix	~2s reply

Appendix: reproduction one-liner

powershell

$env:OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."; $env:IRC_SERVER="irc.libera.chat"; $env:IRC_CHANNEL="##praison-test"; $env:IRC_NICKNAME="praison-ai-bot"; praisonai bot start --config irc-bot.yaml

Send Hi from second client. Before fix: TypeError. After fix: Hello reply.

IRC wire-level context

:PraisonUser!~user@host PRIVMSG ##praison-test :Hi

Adapter parses nick PraisonUser, text Hi, target ##praison-test.

Broken mapping:

BotMessage(text="Hi", user="PraisonUser")  # TypeError

Correct:

BotMessage(content="Hi", sender="PraisonUser", channel="##praison-test", platform="irc")

Libera.Chat live test evidence

* praison-ai-bot has joined ##praison-test
<PraisonUser> Hi
(connection lost — bot process died)

After fix:

<PraisonUser> Hi
<praison-ai-bot> Hello! How can I assist you today?

Join + first message is minimum reproduction — no prior channel activity required.

Source: MervinPraison/PraisonAI

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IRC bot crashes on inbound message due to wrong `BotMessage` field names