Issue Review: cloudflare/workers-sdk#10992

Summary

Deploying a Slidev presentation fails with "infinite loop detected" error due to /* /index.html 200 in _redirects file - user requests better error messaging or automatic handling.

Findings

• Created: 2025-10-15
• Updated: 2026-01-16
• Version: wrangler ^4.43.0 → 4.60.0 (current)
• Component: API/Backend (not Wrangler)
• Labels: bug, internal, api
• Comments: 2

Key Evidence

• Maintainer clarification: @petebacondarwin confirmed on 2025-10-16 that this validation happens in the Cloudflare API backend, not in Wrangler itself. The internal and api labels reflect this.

• The wildcard pattern /* /index.html 200 IS intentionally blocked: This rule would cause an infinite loop because:

  1. Request comes in for /foo
  2. Rule matches and rewrites to /index.html
  3. Cloudflare's HTML handling strips /index.html back to /
  4. Request now matches /* again → infinite loop

• PR #11904 (merged 2026-01-15) only fixes false positives: This PR fixed the validation to allow EXACT path redirects like / /index.html when html_handling is disabled, but the WILDCARD pattern /* /index.html in this issue remains intentionally blocked.

• Recent user interest: Another user asked about workarounds on 2026-01-16, indicating this is still impacting users.

• User's actual request: The reporter asks for either:

  1. A better error message telling them to delete the file
  2. Wrangler to handle this automatically (e.g., strip the problematic rule)

Recommendation

Status: KEEP OPEN

Reasoning: This is a valid feature request for improved UX. The current error message from the Cloudflare API is technically accurate but unhelpful for users who didn't create the _redirects file themselves (it was auto-generated by Slidev). Since this requires backend changes (the validation happens in the API), it appropriately has the internal and api labels. The recent user activity shows continued interest.

Action: Keep open and track internally. The issue is correctly labeled for Platform team visibility. Consider adding a note about the workaround (deleting or modifying the _redirects file before deployment).

Suggested Comment

The workaround for this issue is to delete or modify the _redirects file before deploying. If you're using Slidev, you can add a post-build script to remove the problematic rule:

# After build, remove the problematic redirect rule
sed -i '' '/\\/\\*.*\\/index\\.html.*200/d' dist/_redirects

Or simply delete the entire _redirects file if you don't need any custom redirects:

rm dist/_redirects

This issue remains open for tracking improved error messaging or automatic handling on the API side.