abiosoft/colima · error

error saving template: %w

Error message

error saving template: %w

What it means

Returned by `colima template` when configmanager.SaveToFile cannot write the validated config to the template path (TemplatesDir()/default.yaml, printable via `colima template --print`). The YAML is already valid at this point, so failures are filesystem-level: permission denied on the templates dir, read-only filesystem, or disk full. TemplatesDir is a requiredDir that is mkdir'd on access, so a missing directory normally cannot cause this.

Source

Thrown at cmd/template.go:61

		tmpFile, err := waitForUserEdit(templateCmdArgs.Editor, []byte(abort+"\n"+info+"\n"+template))
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error editing template file: %w", err)
		}
		if tmpFile == "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("empty file, template edit aborted")
		}
		defer func() {
			_ = os.Remove(tmpFile)
		}()

		// load and resave template to ensure the format is correct
		cf, err := configmanager.LoadFrom(tmpFile)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error in template: %w", err)
		}
		if err := configmanager.SaveToFile(cf, templateFile()); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error saving template: %w", err)
		}

		log.Println("configurations template saved")

		return nil
	},
}

func templateFile() string { return filepath.Join(config.TemplatesDir(), "default.yaml") }

func templateFileOrDefault() (string, error) {
	tFile := templateFile()
	if _, err := os.Stat(tFile); err == nil {
		b, err := os.ReadFile(tFile)
		if err == nil {
			return string(b), nil
		}
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Fix ownership of the colima config tree: `sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/.colima`
2. Free disk space and retry `colima template`
3. Confirm the target path and its permissions: `colima template --print` then `ls -ld` its parent directory
4. As a workaround, write the file with correct ownership manually from your validated YAML

Example fix

# before
$ colima template   # (edit, save)
Error: error saving template: open ~/.colima/_templates/default.yaml: permission denied

# after
$ sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/.colima
$ colima template

// Probe writability of the template destination before the interactive round-trip
out, _ := exec.Command("colima", "template", "--print").Output()
tpl := strings.TrimSpace(string(out)) // last line is the path
if probe, err := os.CreateTemp(filepath.Dir(tpl), "probe-*"); err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("templates dir not writable: %v", err)
} else {
    probe.Close()
    os.Remove(probe.Name())
}

When it happens

Trigger: Templates dir owned by root (earlier sudo use) making the write fail with EACCES; disk full (ENOSPC) when flushing the file; security software blocking writes under ~/.colima.

Common situations: Running colima once under sudo then as the normal user; full disks; corporate endpoint protection quarantining writes to dotdirs.

Related errors

• error persisting runtime settings: %w
• error persisting kubernetes settings: %w
• error deleting configs: %w
• error reading ssh config: %w
• error modifying %s: %w

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ec73eff982bd3977. Report an issue: GitHub.