a-b-street/abstreet · error

Your current directory doesn't have the data/ directory…

Error message

Your current directory doesn't have the data/ directory. Run from the git root: cd ../; cargo run --bin updater -- args

What it means

The updater binary requires the current working directory to be the repository root, because it reads and writes the data/ tree. At startup it checks that data/ exists and panics with instructions if not.

Solutions

1. cd to the git repository root before running the updater
2. Ensure data/ exists at the repo root (run the data setup/import steps if the repo was freshly cloned without data)
3. In CI/scripts, set working-directory to the repo root

Example fix

// before (from updater/)
cargo run --bin updater -- args
// after (from git root)
cd ..
cargo run --bin updater -- args

if !std::path::Path::new("data").exists() {
    eprintln!("run from the git root");
    std::process::exit(1);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `cargo run --bin updater` from any directory other than the git root, so `data/` is not a relative path in the CWD.

Common situations: Developers running the updater from within updater/src, a CI step with the wrong working directory, or after cloning without data/ present.

Related errors

• Can't find the data/ directory
• You forgot to call initialize on SimFlags after parsing…
• This build of A/B Street stores player data in…
• CityName::new( , ) has a country code that isn't two letters
• Couldn't read_json( )

AI-assisted analysis of a-b-street/abstreet@0964f29315 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4a2269f9b80a3448. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at updater/src/main.rs:64

        minimal: bool,
        /// Only update files from the manifest. Leave extra files alone.
        #[structopt(long)]
        dont_delete: bool,
        /// Only useful for Dustin. "Download" from my local S3 source-of-truth, not from the
        /// network.
        #[structopt(long)]
        dl_from_local: bool,
        /// Download data tied to a named release. See
        /// https://a-b-street.github.io/docs/tech/dev/data.html.
        #[structopt(long, default_value = "dev")]
        version: String,
    },
}

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    if !std::path::Path::new("data").exists() {
        panic!("Your current directory doesn't have the data/ directory. Run from the git root: cd ../; cargo run --bin updater -- args");
    }

    abstutil::logger::setup();
    match Task::from_args() {
        Task::Upload => {
            upload("dev");
        }
        Task::IncrementalUpload { version } => {
            // We DON'T want to override the main data immediately from the batch Docker jobs. If
            // running locally, can temporarily disable this assertion.
            assert_ne!(version, "dev");
            incremental_upload(version);
        }
        Task::DryRun { single_file } => {
            if let Some(path) = single_file {
                let local = md5sum(&path);
                let truth = Manifest::load()
                    .entries

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