denoland/deno · error · AnyError

Could not find a " " artifact for branch ' '. Artifacts may…

Error message

Could not find a "{artifact_name}" artifact for branch '{branch}'.
Artifacts may have expired or CI may not have completed.

What it means

For a branch install, Deno iterates the (up to 5) most recent CI runs trying both the release and debug artifact names; if none of the runs expose either artifact, it bails. Causes mirror the PR case: artifacts expire, CI is incomplete, or the wanted artifact type was never produced for that branch.

Solutions

Wait for the newest run on the branch to finish uploading artifacts and retry.
Inspect available artifacts: `gh run view <run-id> --repo denoland/deno` and match against the expected name (`release-<os>-<arch>-deno` / debug variant).
If artifacts expired, re-run the workflow or build the branch from source.
On non-linux-x86_64 platforms, target the debug artifact or build locally.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

run_id=$(gh run list --branch "$BRANCH" --repo denoland/deno --limit 1 -q '.[].databaseId')
gh api "repos/denoland/deno/actions/runs/$run_id/artifacts" --jq '.artifacts[].name' | grep -Eq 'release-|debug-' || echo "no usable artifact yet"

Try / catch

deno upgrade --branch "$BRANCH" 2>err.log || { grep -q 'Could not find a' err.log && { sleep 300; deno upgrade --branch "$BRANCH"; }; }

Prevention

Install from branches whose latest run finished the artifact-upload step.
Expect only release (linux-x86_64) and debug artifacts on branches.
Old branches: re-run the workflow or build from source once artifacts expire.

When it happens

Trigger: `deno upgrade` from a branch where all listed runs predate artifact upload, artifacts passed GitHub's retention window, or only platform-specific artifacts (e.g. linux-x86_64 release) exist while you need another platform.

Common situations: Old branches whose artifacts expired; racing an in-flight CI run; requesting release artifacts on platforms where only debug artifacts exist.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of denoland/deno@9ad36f7a2c (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bdeff4b742082e62. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at cli/tools/upgrade.rs:930

        .context("failed to run `gh run download`")?;

      if dl_result.status.success() {
        log::info!(
          "Downloaded artifact \"{}\" from run {}",
          colors::green(name),
          run_id
        );
        downloaded = true;
        break;
      }
    }
    if downloaded {
      break;
    }
  }

  if !downloaded {
    bail!(
      "Could not find a \"{artifact_name}\" artifact for branch '{branch}'.\n\
       Artifacts may have expired or CI may not have completed."
    );
  }

  let exe_name = if cfg!(windows) { "deno.exe" } else { "deno" };
  let new_exe_path = download_dir.join(exe_name);

  if !new_exe_path.exists() {
    bail!("Downloaded artifact does not contain '{exe_name}'.");
  }

  #[cfg(unix)]
  {
    use std::os::unix::fs::PermissionsExt;
    fs::set_permissions(&new_exe_path, std::fs::Permissions::from_mode(0o755))?;
  }

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