What causes "Failed to retrieve skeleton metadata" in Budibase/budibase?

Wait for the GitHub API rate limit to reset (check the X-RateLimit-Reset header) or run from an IP with quota

Failed to retrieve skeleton metadata

Error message

Failed to retrieve skeleton metadata

What it means

getSkeletonUrl queries the GitHub API for the latest release of the budibase/budibase-skeleton repo. Any HTTP status >= 300 (rate limiting, network/proxy errors, repo unavailable) aborts with this error instead of returning a download URL.

Source

Thrown at packages/cli/src/plugins/skeleton.ts:17

import fetch from "node-fetch"
import fs from "fs"
import os from "os"
import { join } from "path"
import { processStringSync } from "@budibase/string-templates"

const download = require("download")
const tar = require("tar")

const HBS_FILES = ["package.json.hbs", "schema.json.hbs", "README.md.hbs"]

async function getSkeletonUrl(type: string) {
  const resp = await fetch(
    "https://api.github.com/repos/budibase/budibase-skeleton/releases/latest"
  )
  if (resp.status >= 300) {
    throw new Error("Failed to retrieve skeleton metadata")
  }
  const json = (await resp.json()) as { assets: any[] }
  for (let asset of json["assets"]) {
    if (asset.name && asset.name.includes(type)) {
      return asset["browser_download_url"]
    }
  }
  throw new Error("No skeleton found in latest release.")
}

export async function getSkeleton(type: string, name: string) {
  const url = await getSkeletonUrl(type)
  const tarballFile = join(os.tmpdir(), "skeleton.tar.gz")

  // download the full skeleton tarball
  fs.writeFileSync(tarballFile, await download(url))
  fs.mkdirSync(name)
  // extract it and get what we need

View on GitHub (pinned to a81a902e9a)

Solutions

Wait for the GitHub API rate limit to reset (check the X-RateLimit-Reset header) or run from an IP with quota
Set a GITHUB_TOKEN / use authenticated requests if your environment supports it, and re-run
Verify network/proxy access: `curl -I https://api.github.com/repos/budibase/budibase-skeleton/releases/latest`
Retry later during a GitHub incident (check githubstatus.com)

Example fix

// diagnose before retrying
curl -I https://api.github.com/repos/budibase/budibase-skeleton/releases/latest
// HTTP/1.1 403 ... "API rate limit exceeded" => wait or change network

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

const resp = await fetch("https://api.github.com/repos/budibase/budibase-skeleton/releases/latest")
if (!resp.ok) {
  const remaining = resp.headers.get("x-ratelimit-remaining")
  if (remaining === "0") throw new Error("GitHub API rate limited; retry later or authenticate")
}

Try / catch

try {
  const url = await getSkeletonUrl(type)
} catch (err) {
  if ((err as Error).message === "Failed to retrieve skeleton metadata") {
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 5000))
    // retry once, or instruct user about rate limits/proxy
  } else throw err
}

Prevention

Avoid running skeleton downloads from rate-limited shared CI IPs
Check api.github.com reachability behind corporate proxies
Monitor GitHub status during incidents before retrying

When it happens

Trigger: Running the plugin init command when the GET https://api.github.com/repos/budibase/budibase-skeleton/releases/latest request returns a non-2xx status (e.g. 403 rate limit, 404, 5xx, connection failure surfaced as a status).

Common situations: Unauthenticated GitHub API rate limiting (60 req/hr per IP) on CI or shared IPs; corporate proxy blocking api.github.com; GitHub outage; offline environment.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Budibase/budibase@a81a902e9a (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/42a851e0244a045b. Report an issue: GitHub.