What causes "Failed to check directory contents: {}" in aaif-goose/goose?

Verify gh still resolves right after the failure: `command -v gh`

Failed to check directory contents: {}

Error message

Failed to check directory contents: {}

What it means

While discovering recipes, goose probes each top-level directory with `gh api repos/<repo>/contents/<dir>` (crates/goose-cli/src/recipes/github_recipe.rs:292-304). This error is the spawn io failure of that per-directory call — the gh process could not be executed. It carries the io error text, unlike the static variants elsewhere.

Source

Thrown at crates/goose-cli/src/recipes/github_recipe.rs:303

                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    Ok(recipes)
}

fn check_github_directory_for_recipe(repo: &str, dir_name: &str) -> Result<RecipeInfo> {
    use serde_json::Value;
    use std::process::Command;

    // Check directory contents for recipe files
    let output = Command::new("gh")
        .args(["api", &format!("repos/{}/contents/{}", repo, dir_name)])
        .set_no_window()
        .output()
        .map_err(|e| anyhow!("Failed to check directory contents: {}", e))?;

    if !output.status.success() {
        return Err(anyhow!("Failed to access directory: {}", dir_name));
    }

    let contents: Value = serde_json::from_slice(&output.stdout)
        .map_err(|e| anyhow!("Failed to parse directory contents: {}", e))?;

    if let Some(items) = contents.as_array() {
        for item in items {
            if let Some(name) = item.get("name").and_then(|n| n.as_str()) {
                if RECIPE_FILE_EXTENSIONS
                    .iter()
                    .any(|ext| name == format!("recipe.{}", ext))
                {
                    // Found a recipe file, get its content
                    return get_github_recipe_info(repo, dir_name, name);
                }

View on GitHub (pinned to 3810898a74)

Solutions

Verify gh still resolves right after the failure: `command -v gh`
Re-run discovery; transient EAGAIN at spawn clears when load drops
Stabilize the environment (consistent PATH, no mid-run binary swaps) for tooling that shells out repeatedly

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# Probe one directory the same way goose does
dir=$(gh api "repos/$GOOSE_RECIPE_GITHUB_REPO/contents" --jq '.[0].name')
gh api "repos/$GOOSE_RECIPE_GITHUB_REPO/contents/$dir" >/dev/null && echo "per-dir probe OK"

Prevention

Keep gh resolvable for the entire discovery loop (stable PATH)
Skip or cache discovery for huge recipe repos to limit repeated gh spawns

When it happens

Trigger: Same io class as [135] but hit on the per-directory loop: gh removed from PATH or replaced mid-run, exec permission/format error, or process-creation resource limits reached while iterating many directories.

Common situations: Rare in practice since the parent call succeeded seconds earlier; appears with PATH instability in wrappers, concurrent gh upgrades, or containers hitting the process limit during discovery of large recipe repos.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of aaif-goose/goose@3810898a74 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5af094261443eff7. Report an issue: GitHub.