clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB · error

Failed to parse config file {}: {}

Error message

Failed to parse config file {}: {}

What it means

SpacetimeConfig::load read the file successfully but json5::from_str could not parse it: the content is not valid JSON5. Note the file is parsed as JSON5, so comments and trailing commas are legal — the failure means a genuine syntax defect (unbalanced braces/brackets, unterminated string, invalid escape, stray text). The message includes the json5 crate's error, which pinpoints the offending position.

Source

Thrown at crates/cli/src/spacetime_config.rs:817

    ///
    /// Searches for spacetime.json starting from `start_dir`
    /// and walking up the directory tree until found or filesystem root is reached.
    pub fn find_and_load_from(start_dir: PathBuf) -> anyhow::Result<Option<(PathBuf, Self)>> {
        Ok(find_and_load_with_env_from(None, start_dir)?.map(|loaded| {
            let config_path = loaded.config_dir.join(CONFIG_FILENAME);
            (config_path, loaded.config)
        }))
    }

    /// Load a spacetime.json file from a specific path.
    ///
    /// The file must exist and be valid JSON5 format (supports comments).
    pub fn load(path: &Path) -> anyhow::Result<Self> {
        let content =
            std::fs::read_to_string(path).with_context(|| format!("Failed to read config file: {}", path.display()))?;

        let config: Self = json5::from_str(&content)
            .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to parse config file {}: {}", path.display(), e))?;

        Ok(config)
    }

    /// Save the config to a file.
    ///
    /// The config will be serialized as pretty-printed JSON.
    pub fn save(&self, path: &Path) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
        let json = serde_json::to_string_pretty(self).context("Failed to serialize config")?;

        std::fs::write(path, json).with_context(|| format!("Failed to write config file: {}", path.display()))?;

        Ok(())
    }

    /// Create a spacetime.json file in the current directory with the given config.
    pub fn create_in_current_dir(&self) -> anyhow::Result<PathBuf> {
        let config_path = std::env::current_dir()?.join("spacetime.json");

View on GitHub (pinned to 524b4487d9)

Solutions

  1. Open the file and jump to the position reported by the json5 error; fix unbalanced delimiters or quotes and remove conflict markers (<<<<<<< / ======= / >>>>>>>)
  2. Validate the file with a JSON5 linter (e.g. `npx json5 spacetime.json`) to confirm it parses
  3. If the file is beyond repair, regenerate a baseline with `spacetime init` and re-apply your changes incrementally, testing after each edit

Example fix

// before (spacetime.json)
{ "name": "mydb", "modules": [ { "name": "m1" } ]  // missing close for "modules"

// after
{
  "name": "mydb",
  "modules": [ { "name": "m1" } ]
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# CI pre-check: reject unparseable config before any spacetime command runs
npx --yes json5 spacetime.json > /dev/null || { echo 'spacetime.json is not valid JSON5' >&2; exit 1; }

Try / catch

match SpacetimeConfig::load(&path) {
    Ok(cfg) => cfg,
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("Failed to parse config file") => {
        // surface the json5 position from the message; block the pipeline
        return Err(e.context("fix spacetime.json syntax before deploying"));
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Loading a spacetime.json by explicit path (SpacetimeConfig::load) when the file text has a syntax error; the {e} component carries the parser's line/column detail.

Common situations: Hand-editing the config and breaking syntax; unresolved git merge-conflict markers left in the file; templating/snippets inserting stray characters; prose accidentally appended after the closing brace.

Understand the failure class

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB@524b4487d9 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1eb2cb90dfc6c960. Report an issue: GitHub.