charmbracelet/crush · warning

failed to get tail flag: %v

Error message

failed to get tail flag: %v

What it means

The `crush logs` command reads the integer --tail flag via cmd.Flags().GetInt and wraps any failure with this message. GetInt errors only when the flag is not defined on the command; user-supplied bad integers are rejected earlier by cobra's flag parsing with a different error.

Source

Thrown at internal/cmd/logs.go:45

	RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
		cwd, err := cmd.Flags().GetString("cwd")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to get current working directory: %v", err)
		}

		dataDir, err := cmd.Flags().GetString("data-dir")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to get data directory: %v", err)
		}

		follow, err := cmd.Flags().GetBool("follow")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to get follow flag: %v", err)
		}

		tailLines, err := cmd.Flags().GetInt("tail")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to get tail flag: %v", err)
		}

		log.SetLevel(log.DebugLevel)
		log.SetOutput(os.Stdout)
		if !term.IsTerminal(os.Stdout.Fd()) {
			log.SetColorProfile(colorprofile.NoTTY)
		}

		cfg, err := config.Load(cwd, dataDir, false)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to load configuration: %v", err)
		}
		logsFile := filepath.Join(cfg.Config().Options.DataDirectory, "logs", "crush.log")
		_, err = os.Stat(logsFile)
		if os.IsNotExist(err) {
			log.Warn("Looks like you are not in a crush project. No logs found.")
			return nil
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 7944b8e522)

Solutions

1. Reinstall/rebuild crush from an official source tree.
2. If developing: register `cmd.Flags().Int("tail", ...)` in the logs command setup.
3. Add a test that executes the command with all flags registered to catch wiring drift.

Example fix

// before
RunE queries: cmd.Flags().GetInt("tail") // not registered
// after
cmd.Flags().Int("tail", 100, "Number of lines to show from the end of the log")

if f := cmd.Flags().Lookup("tail"); f == nil {
    tailLines = 100 // sensible default
}

tailLines, err := cmd.Flags().GetInt("tail")
if err != nil {
    tailLines = 100
}

When it happens

Trigger: RunE querying "tail" while the --tail flag registration is missing (fork, partial refactor), or calling RunE programmatically on an unconfigured command.

Common situations: Custom builds where flag setup diverged from RunE; test code invoking RunE directly; merge conflict removing the registration line.

Related errors

• failed to get current working directory: %v
• failed to get data directory: %v
• failed to get follow flag: %v
• failed to get data directory: %v
• failed to get debug flag: %v

AI-assisted analysis of charmbracelet/crush@7944b8e522 (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6f31b2e65d955108. Report an issue: GitHub.