import traceback


def error_message(exc: Exception) -> str:
    """
    Turn `exc` into a pretty, succinct error message.

    This only wraps the `traceback` module - sadly its interface is fairly ugly
    and so we can help ourselves by at least abstracting the ugly away.

    The message does not contain the stack trace, as it's generally not necessary
    and brings about a certain level of complexity.
    """
    error_lines = ["[Traceback ignored]\n\n"] + traceback.format_exception_only(type(exc), exc)
    return "".join(error_lines)