astrid-runtime/astrid · error

failed to persist {}: {e}

Error message

failed to persist {}: {e}

What it means

write_pin writes the trusted distro public key into the Astrid home trust store atomically: it stages the pin in a NamedTempFile, removes any existing pin, then calls tempfile's persist() to rename it into place. This error means the final rename/replace failed (PersistError), so the trust pin was not applied even though the key itself may have been verified.

Source

Thrown at crates/astrid-cli/src/commands/distro/trust.rs:117

    }
    let mut tmp = tempfile::NamedTempFile::new_in(path.parent().unwrap_or(home.root()))
        .context("failed to create temp file for trust pin")?;
    std::io::Write::write_all(&mut tmp, format!("{key_str}\n").as_bytes())
        .context("failed to write trust pin staging")?;
    // Windows `rename` (which `persist` uses) won't overwrite an existing
    // destination, so re-pinning (`--accept-new-key`) would fail there.
    // Remove any existing pin first; a missing file is expected and fine.
    match std::fs::remove_file(&path) {
        Ok(()) => {},
        Err(e) if e.kind() == std::io::ErrorKind::NotFound => {},
        Err(e) => {
            return Err(e).with_context(|| {
                format!("failed to replace existing trust pin {}", path.display())
            });
        },
    }
    tmp.persist(&path)
        .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("failed to persist {}: {e}", path.display()))?;
    Ok(())
}

/// Verify a sealed distro's signature and apply the trust policy.
///
/// `manifest_pubkey` is the `[distro.signing].pubkey` declared in the
/// manifest. `sig_hex` is the `Distro.sig` contents. `lock` is the
/// resolved lock the signature covers.
///
/// # Errors
///
/// - signature does not verify (no override),
/// - key differs from the pin and `accept_new_key` is false,
/// - no trust pin exists,
/// - malformed key/signature.
pub(crate) fn verify_and_pin(
    home: &AstridHome,
    distro_id: &str,

View on GitHub (pinned to affd8760f4)

Solutions

1. Check free disk space and retry the distro apply / pin command.
2. Fix permissions on the trust directory under the Astrid home (chown/chmod to the running user).
3. Close processes locking the target file (AV, sync clients) or add the Astrid home to exclusions.
4. Remove the existing pin file manually and re-run with --accept-new-key.

Example fix

# before
$ astrid distro apply my-distro --accept-new-key
Error: failed to persist /home/u/.astrid/trust/my-distro.key: ...
# after
$ chmod u+w ~/.astrid/trust && rm -f ~/.astrid/trust/my-distro.key
$ astrid distro apply my-distro --accept-new-key

let trust_dir = path.parent().unwrap();
if !trust_dir.exists() { std::fs::create_dir_all(trust_dir)?; }
let meta = std::fs::metadata(trust_dir)?;
assert!(meta.permissions().readonly() == false, "trust dir is read-only");

match verify_and_pin(...) {
    Ok(outcome) => info!("pinned: {:?}", outcome),
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("failed to persist") => {
        eprintln!("could not write trust pin (disk/permissions/lock?): {e}");
    },
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

When it happens

Trigger: verify_and_pin -> write_pin when persist(&path) fails: destination locked by another process (antivirus/indexer holding the file, especially on Windows rename semantics), permissions on the trust directory changed mid-write, target path re-created between remove_file and persist, disk full, or the Astrid home directory was made read-only.

Common situations: Running the CLI under a different user than the one owning ~/.astrid; syncing tools (Dropbox/OneDrive) locking trust files; corporate EDR/antivirus intercepting renames in the home directory; full disk while applying a distro.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to write file", "Could not save figure", "Error saving remote file" — file write failed: causes and fixes across languages and libraries — this error's family across 38 libraries.

Related errors

• layout record has no parent
• layout record has no file name
• layout staging path is redirected: {}
• durable layout records are unsupported on this operating sys
• private atomic-file backend is selected by Windows callers o

AI-assisted analysis of astrid-runtime/astrid@affd8760f4 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0649d3f340d0cee3. Report an issue: GitHub.