Reasoning+message items must appear as consecutive pairs in input, but nothing documents this. The most common pattern — filtering response.output() to keep only messages — silently produces orphaned items → 400 on the next turn.
This broke OpenClaw (64.9k forks) on gpt-5.3-codex. They had to add downgradeOpenAIReasoningBlocks() to strip orphan reasoning items.
400: Item 'msg_...' of type 'message' was provided without its required preceding item of type 'reasoning'
Tested in Java, JS, Python, Go, .NET — identical results across all 5 SDKs. This is an API-level constraint, not SDK-specific. Confirmed via curl (see gist). The SDK types don't prevent building input arrays that violate it.
| Model |
A (all items) |
B (msgs only) |
| gpt-5.3-codex (reasoning=high) |
PASS |
FAIL |
| o4-mini |
PASS |
FAIL* |
* Nondeterministic — o4-mini sometimes returns reasoning-only output (no message to orphan). Codex with reasoning=high reliably returns both items.
Workaround: previousResponseId(). For manual history, always pass reasoning+message pairs together.
Related:
To Reproduce
import com.openai.client.OpenAIClient;
import com.openai.client.okhttp.OpenAIOkHttpClient;
import com.openai.models.responses.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class PairingConstraintRepro {
public static void main(String[] args) {
OpenAIClient client = OpenAIOkHttpClient.builder()
.apiKey(System.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"))
.build();
String[] prompts = {"Write a Python prime checker.", "Add type hints.", "Add docstrings."};
List<ResponseInputUnionParam> conversation = new ArrayList<>();
for (String msg : prompts) {
System.out.println("\n> " + msg);
conversation.add(ResponseInputUnionParam.ofEasyInputMessage(
EasyInputMessageParam.builder()
.role(EasyInputMessageParam.Role.USER)
.content(msg)
.build()));
try {
Response response = client.responses().create(
ResponseCreateParams.builder()
.model("gpt-5.3-codex")
.input(ResponseCreateParams.Input.ofResponseInputs(conversation))
.maxOutputTokens(300)
.reasoning(Reasoning.builder().effort(Reasoning.Effort.HIGH).build())
.build());
// Common pattern: keep only messages, discard reasoning
for (ResponseOutputItem item : response.output()) {
if (item.isMessage()) {
// Convert output message to input — orphan message → 400
conversation.add(ResponseInputUnionParam.ofResponseInputItem(
ResponseInputItemParam.builder()
.id(item.asMessage().id())
.type(ResponseInputItemParam.Type.MESSAGE)
.build()));
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(" ERROR: " + e.getMessage().substring(0, Math.min(120, e.getMessage().length())));
break;
}
}
// Turn 2 → 400: Item 'msg_...' was provided without its required preceding item
}
}
Note: the Java SDK's distinct input/output wrapper types make the conversion verbose, but the pairing constraint failure is the same regardless.
Reproduced on o4-mini and gpt-5.3-codex. Full cross-language repro (JS, Python, .NET, curl): https://gist.github.com/achandmsft/57886350885cec3af8ef3f456ed529cf
OS
Windows 11, also reproduced on Linux
Java version
Java 21
Library version
openai-java v4.29.0
Reasoning+message items must appear as consecutive pairs in
input, but nothing documents this. The most common pattern — filteringresponse.output()to keep only messages — silently produces orphaned items → 400 on the next turn.This broke OpenClaw (64.9k forks) on
gpt-5.3-codex. They had to adddowngradeOpenAIReasoningBlocks()to strip orphan reasoning items.Tested in Java, JS, Python, Go, .NET — identical results across all 5 SDKs. This is an API-level constraint, not SDK-specific. Confirmed via curl (see gist). The SDK types don't prevent building
inputarrays that violate it.* Nondeterministic — o4-mini sometimes returns reasoning-only output (no message to orphan). Codex with reasoning=high reliably returns both items.
Workaround:
previousResponseId(). For manual history, always pass reasoning+message pairs together.Related:
To Reproduce
Note: the Java SDK's distinct input/output wrapper types make the conversion verbose, but the pairing constraint failure is the same regardless.
Reproduced on o4-mini and gpt-5.3-codex. Full cross-language repro (JS, Python, .NET, curl): https://gist.github.com/achandmsft/57886350885cec3af8ef3f456ed529cf
OS
Windows 11, also reproduced on Linux
Java version
Java 21
Library version
openai-java v4.29.0