atuinsh/atuin · error

Failed to get current PID

Error message

Failed to get current PID

What it means

Shell::current identifies the shell that spawned atuin by walking the process tree via the sysinfo crate. It first calls get_current_pid() and unwraps it with expect; if the sysinfo/OS call cannot determine the current PID, the process panics with 'Failed to get current PID'.

Solutions

1. Run on a supported OS (Linux, macOS, Windows, BSDs) where process IDs are retrievable.
2. Check sysinfo version compatibility if built for an unusual target; upgrade/downgrade the crate.
3. Replace the expect with graceful error handling if you embed atuin-common in an environment without PID support.
4. Report the platform/target to atuin maintainers if a supported OS still hits this.

Example fix

// before
let process = sys.process(get_current_pid().expect("Failed to get current PID"))
    .expect("Process with current pid does not exist");

// after
let pid = match get_current_pid() {
    Ok(pid) => pid,
    Err(e) => return Err(format!("cannot determine current pid: {e}")),
};

// Rust: detect PID availability before calling Shell::current (best-effort)
fn pid_available() -> bool {
    std::process::id() != 0 && std::env::var_os("SHELL").is_some()
}

// Rust: expect() panics — contain it or avoid it
let shell = std::panic::catch_unwind(Shell::current)
    .unwrap_or_else(|_| Shell::from_string(&std::env::var("SHELL").unwrap_or_default()));

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Shell::current (used during history capture / shell detection) on a platform where the `sysinfo` get_current_pid() helper fails — effectively never on Linux/macOS/Windows, but possible on unsupported or heavily sandboxed targets.

Common situations: Running atuin on an exotic or restricted platform where /proc or the OS process APIs are unavailable; linking a sysinfo version whose platform backend fails for the current target.

Understand the failure class

Background: "This is a bug, please report it": internal invariant violations, unreachable panics, and SNH errors explained — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

• Atuin running with no parent!
• Process with current pid does not exist
• Process with parent pid does not exist
• clone pty reader
• Could not build config

AI-assisted analysis of atuinsh/atuin@c0c717ab04 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/91886c19964bd619. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/atuin-common/src/shell.rs:44

    Unknown,
}

#[derive(Debug, Error, Serialize)]
pub enum ShellError {
    #[error("shell not supported")]
    NotSupported,

    #[error("failed to execute shell command: {0}")]
    ExecError(String),
}

impl Shell {
    #[must_use]
    pub fn current() -> Self {
        let sys = System::new_all();

        let process = sys
            .process(get_current_pid().expect("Failed to get current PID"))
            .expect("Process with current pid does not exist");

        let parent = sys
            .process(process.parent().expect("Atuin running with no parent!"))
            .expect("Process with parent pid does not exist");

        let shell = parent.name().to_string_lossy().trim().to_lowercase();
        let shell = shell.strip_prefix('-').unwrap_or(&shell);

        Self::from_string(shell)
    }

    #[must_use]
    pub fn from_env() -> Self {
        std::env::var("ATUIN_SHELL")
            .map_or(Self::Unknown, |shell| Self::from_string(&shell.trim().to_lowercase()))
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to c0c717ab04)