continuedev/continue · error · Error

Failed to parse config: ${formatZodError(e)}

Error message

Failed to parse config: ${formatZodError(e)}

What it means

parseConfigYaml rethrows Zod validation failures with a human-formatted message (formatZodError) instead of raw Zod issues. The YAML parsed fine but did not match the config schema.

Source

Thrown at packages/config-yaml/src/load/unroll.ts:51

  try {
    const parsed = YAML.parse(configYaml);
    const result = configYamlSchema.safeParse(parsed);
    if (result.success) {
      return result.data;
    }

    throw new Error(formatZodError(result.error), {
      cause: "result.success was false",
    });
  } catch (e) {
    if (
      e instanceof Error &&
      "cause" in e &&
      e.cause === "result.success was false"
    ) {
      throw new Error(`Failed to parse config: ${e.message}`);
    } else if (e instanceof ZodError) {
      throw new Error(`Failed to parse config: ${formatZodError(e)}`);
    } else {
      throw new Error(
        `Failed to parse config: ${e instanceof Error ? e.message : e}`,
      );
    }
  }
}

export function parseAssistantUnrolled(configYaml: string): AssistantUnrolled {
  try {
    const parsed = YAML.parse(configYaml);
    const result = assistantUnrolledSchema.parse(parsed);
    return result;
  } catch (e: any) {
    console.error(
      `Failed to parse unrolled assistant: ${e.message}\n\n${configYaml}`,
    );
    throw new Error(`Failed to parse config: ${formatZodError(e)}`);

View on GitHub (pinned to 5522c6f44c)

Solutions

1. Read the formatted message: it lists the exact failing paths and expected types
2. Fix the indicated fields in the YAML
3. Compare against a known-good example config for the current schema version

Example fix

// before
model: gpt-4        # wrong shape
# after
model: openai/gpt-4  # matches expected provider/model format

// Dry-run schema validation for better UX
import { configSchema } from '...';
configSchema.safeParse(YAML.parse(configYaml)); // inspect issues before parseConfigYaml

try {
  parseConfigYaml(yaml);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message.startsWith('Failed to parse config:')) {
    // show the formatted field paths to the user
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: parseConfigYaml on YAML that is syntactically valid but has wrong field names, wrong types, missing required fields, or unknown enum values per the Zod schema.

Common situations: Typos in config keys, using an outdated config format after a library upgrade, wrong nesting of blocks/models.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• Failed to parse block: ${formatZodError(e)}
• FindAndReplaceMissingOldString
• FindAndReplaceMissingNewString
• Invalid agent file frontmatter: ${errorDetails}
• Table name must be in format schema.table_name, got ${tableN

AI-assisted analysis of continuedev/continue@5522c6f44c (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6f86a118a026599b. Report an issue: GitHub.