LGUG2Z/komorebi · error

no home directory found

Error message

no home directory found

What it means

komorebi-shortcuts resolves its configuration home by first honoring WHKD_CONFIG_HOME, and falling back to dirs::home_dir().join(".config"). The expect panics when dirs::home_dir() returns None, i.e. the process has no discoverable home directory (HOME/USERPROFILE unset or invalid).

Source

Thrown at komorebi-shortcuts/src/main.rs:20

use std::path::PathBuf;
use whkd_core::Whkdrc;

#[derive(Default)]
struct Quicklook {
    whkdrc: Option<Whkdrc>,
    filter: String,
}

impl Quicklook {
    fn new(_cc: &eframe::CreationContext<'_>) -> Self {
        // Customize egui here with cc.egui_ctx.set_fonts and cc.egui_ctx.set_visuals.
        // Restore app state using cc.storage (requires the "persistence" feature).
        // Use the cc.gl (a glow::Context) to create graphics shaders and buffers that you can use
        // for e.g. egui::PaintCallback.
        let mut home = std::env::var("WHKD_CONFIG_HOME").map_or_else(
            |_| {
                dirs::home_dir()
                    .expect("no home directory found")
                    .join(".config")
            },
            |home_path| {
                let home = PathBuf::from(&home_path);

                if home.as_path().is_dir() {
                    home
                } else {
                    panic!(
                        "$Env:WHKD_CONFIG_HOME is set to '{home_path}', which is not a valid directory",
                    );
                }
            },
        );
        home.push("whkdrc");

        Self {
            whkdrc: whkd_parser::load(&home).ok(),

View on GitHub (pinned to e0709f02bf)

Solutions

  1. Set WHKD_CONFIG_HOME to an existing directory to bypass the home-dir lookup entirely
  2. Ensure USERPROFILE (Windows) / HOME is set and points to an existing directory for the user running the app
  3. Launch the app from a normal user shell rather than a service/CI context with a stripped environment
  4. Patch the fallback to use a sensible default (e.g. the executable's directory or a temp config path) instead of panicking

Example fix

// before
dirs::home_dir()
    .expect("no home directory found")
    .join(".config")
// after
dirs::home_dir()
    .map(|home| home.join(".config"))
    .unwrap_or_else(|| {
        std::env::var("APPDATA")
            .map(PathBuf::from)
            .unwrap_or_else(|_| PathBuf::from("."))
    })
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// PowerShell: verify resolvable config home before launching
if (-not $env:WHKD_CONFIG_HOME) {
  if (-not $env:USERPROFILE) { throw "Neither WHKD_CONFIG_HOME nor USERPROFILE is set" }
}

Type guard

// Rust
fn effective_config_home() -> Option<PathBuf> {
    std::env::var("WHKD_CONFIG_HOME").ok().map(PathBuf::from)
        .or_else(|| dirs::home_dir().map(|h| h.join(".config")))
}

Try / catch

match dirs::home_dir() {
    Some(home) => configure(home.join(".config")),
    None => { log::error!("no home directory found; skipping state restore"); return; }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling App::new (eframe/egui entry point) with the WHKD_CONFIG_HOME environment variable unset AND no home directory resolvable by the dirs crate (USERPROFILE/HOME missing), so dirs::home_dir() yields None and .expect panics.

Common situations: Running komorebi-shortcuts from a service, scheduled task, or shell with a scrubbed environment; launching from an SSH or CI context without USERPROFILE set; a corrupted user profile where the profile directory no longer exists.

Understand the failure class

Background: "environment variable is not set" and "Missing keys in environment" errors: what missing required env var messages mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of LGUG2Z/komorebi@e0709f02bf (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/64027ebee381630f. Report an issue: GitHub.