Jguer/yay · error

no keys to import

Error message

no keys to import

What it means

formatKeysToImport builds the user-facing question listing PGP keys to import; it guards against being handed an empty key set and returns this error when there is nothing to import. It is an internal invariant: CheckPgpKeys should only call it when problematic keys were collected.

Solutions

1. Check upstream that keys were collected before prompting; only call the PGP-import flow when the pgpKeySet is non-empty.
2. If you hit it as a user, re-run the operation; if reproducible, it indicates a yay bug — report it with the PKGBUILD/srcinfo involved.
3. Verify the PKGBUILD's validpgpkeys array is well-formed (non-empty hex IDs) if you authored it.

Example fix

// before
if len(keys) == 0 { return "", errors.New("no keys to import") }
// after (caller side)
if len(problematicKeys) > 0 {
    if _, err := formatKeysToImport(logger, problematicKeys); err != nil { return err }
}

if len(problematicKeys) == 0 {
    return nil // nothing to import; skip prompt flow entirely
}

question, err := formatKeysToImport(logger, keys)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "no keys to import") {
        return nil // treat as no-op
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: CheckPgpKeys -> formatKeysToImport with a pgpKeySet of length 0, i.e. the srcinfo parsing produced no problematic keys but the import flow was still entered.

Common situations: Programmatic use of the srcinfo service with an empty/edge-case srcinfo input; a logic bug upstream where the key filter already removed everything before prompting; weird PKGBUILDs with no validpgpkeys passing through the check path.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• problem importing keys
• package not found in repos
• invalid option
• failed to parse
• error resetting

AI-assisted analysis of Jguer/yay@328f4b4939 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/35b6b6c3f73d64bc. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at pkg/sync/srcinfo/pgp/keys.go:110

	return problematic.toSlice(), nil
}

// importKeys tries to import the list of keys specified in its argument.
func importKeys(ctx context.Context, logger *text.Logger, cmdBuilder GPGCmdBuilder, keys []string) error {
	logger.OperationInfoln(gotext.Get("Importing keys with gpg..."))

	if err := cmdBuilder.Show(cmdBuilder.BuildGPGCmd(ctx, append([]string{"--recv-keys"}, keys...)...)); err != nil {
		return errors.New(gotext.Get("problem importing keys"))
	}

	return nil
}

// formatKeysToImport receives a set of keys and returns a string containing the
// question asking the user wants to import the problematic keys.
func formatKeysToImport(logger *text.Logger, keys pgpKeySet) (string, error) {
	if len(keys) == 0 {
		return "", errors.New(gotext.Get("no keys to import"))
	}

	var buffer bytes.Buffer

	buffer.WriteString(logger.SprintOperationInfo(gotext.Get("PGP keys need importing:")))

	for key, bases := range keys {
		pkglist := ""
		for _, base := range bases {
			pkglist += base + "  "
		}

		pkglist = strings.TrimRight(pkglist, " ")
		buffer.WriteString("\n" + logger.SprintWarn(gotext.Get("%s, required by: %s", text.Cyan(key), text.Cyan(pkglist))))
	}

	return buffer.String(), nil
}

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