atuinsh/atuin · error

failed to set absolute path override for {key}

Error message

failed to set absolute path override for {key}

What it means

During config loading, atuin merges config values that are absolute filesystem paths into the `config` crate builder via `set_override`. If the config crate rejects the override (malformed dotted key, type conflict with the schema, or a value that cannot be coerced), the code panics with this message naming the offending key.

Source

Thrown at crates/atuin-client/src/settings.rs:1708

            "logs.search.file",
            "logs.daemon.file",
        ]
        .iter()
        .map(|key| (key, built.get_string(key).unwrap_or_default()))
        // An unset optional path (`daemon.socket_path`) must stay unset rather
        // than be overridden with an empty one.
        .filter(|(_, value)| !value.is_empty())
        .filter_map(|(key, value)| match Self::expand_path(&value) {
            Ok(expanded) => Some((key, expanded)),
            Err(e) => {
                tracing::warn!("failed to expand path for {key}: {e}");
                None
            }
        })
        .fold(config_builder, |builder, (key, value)| {
            builder
                .set_override(key, value)
                .unwrap_or_else(|_| panic!("failed to set absolute path override for {key}"))
        });

        config_builder.build().map_err(Into::into)
    }

    /// Look up a single config value by dotted key (e.g. `"daemon.sync_frequency"`).
    ///
    /// Returns the effective value after merging defaults, config file, and
    /// environment — without the side-effects of full `Settings` construction
    /// (meta store init, path expansion, etc.).
    pub fn get_config_value(key: &str) -> Result<String> {
        use config::Value;

        #[cfg_attr(not(unix), allow(unused_mut))]
        let mut config = Self::build_config()?;

        // When unset, `daemon.socket_path` is calculated dynamically by [`Daemon::socket_path`] and
        // wouldn't show up in `atuin config get --resolved daemon.socket_path`. However, it may be

View on GitHub (pinned to c0c717ab04)

Solutions

  1. Open config.toml and find the key printed in the panic message; fix or remove it
  2. Ensure the key path matches the settings schema (check crates/atuin-client/src/settings.rs structs)
  3. If the value should be a path, confirm it is a plain string, not a nested table
  4. Bisect by commenting out config sections until the panic disappears

Example fix

# before (config.toml)
[sync]
records = true
sync.records = true
# after (config.toml)
[sync]
records = true
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// validate config keys against the schema before loading
let known: Vec<String> = Settings::structured_config().keys().collect();
for key in user_config_keys {
    assert!(known.contains(&key), "unknown config key: {key}");
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: A config.toml entry whose dotted key path collides with a non-map value in the settings schema (e.g. overriding a scalar field as a table), or a key that `config::Builder::set_override` cannot parse/insert during the `absolute path` fold in load

Common situations: Hand-edited config.toml with a typo'd or malformed key like `extra_header..foo`, or nesting a table where the schema expects a string, after moving to a config layout not supported by the current atuin version

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of atuinsh/atuin@c0c717ab04 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/572bf656792f0725. Report an issue: GitHub.