denoland/deno · error · AnyError

Downloaded artifact does not contain '{}'. Contents: {:?}

Error message

Downloaded artifact does not contain '{}'. Contents: {:?}

What it means

A PR artifact was downloaded and unpacked into a temp dir, but the expected `deno` (or `deno.exe` on Windows) executable is not among the extracted files; Deno lists the actual directory contents to help diagnose. This means the artifact zip has an unexpected layout — the binary is missing, nested under a subdirectory, or the artifact is not the build you assumed.

Source

Thrown at cli/tools/upgrade.rs:773

      break;
    }
  }

  if !downloaded {
    bail!(
      "Could not find a \"{}\" artifact for PR #{pr_number}.\n\
       Available artifacts may have expired or CI may not have completed.\n\
       Only release builds on linux-x86_64 and debug builds are typically available for PRs.",
      artifact_name
    );
  }

  // Find the downloaded binary
  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 '{}'. Contents: {:?}",
      exe_name,
      fs::read_dir(download_dir)?
        .filter_map(|e| e.ok())
        .map(|e| e.file_name().to_string_lossy().to_string())
        .collect::<Vec<_>>()
    );
  }

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

  // Verify the binary works
  check_exe(&new_exe_path)?;

View on GitHub (pinned to 9ad36f7a2c)

Solutions

1. Read the 'Contents:' list in the error — if the binary sits in a subfolder or has a different name, that is a packaging change; report it against the PR/Deno.
2. Retry the download in case of a truncated transfer (the temp dir is recreated each run).
3. Check the PR's CI workflow for how artifacts are packaged and pick the correct artifact.
4. Fall back to building the PR branch locally (`cargo build --bin deno`) until packaging is fixed.

# pre-inspect the artifact layout before letting deno download it
tmp=$(mktemp -d)
gh run download <run-id> -n release-linux-x86_64-deno --repo denoland/deno -D "$tmp"
test -x "$tmp/deno" || echo "layout changed — binary not at archive root"

deno upgrade --pr 12345 2>err.log || { grep -q 'does not contain' err.log && gh run download <run-id> -D manual && ./manual/deno -V; }

When it happens

Trigger: CI artifact packaging changes (binary moved into a subfolder or renamed); downloading an artifact type (e.g. libs/tests) that contains no binary; partial/corrupted download that unpacked only metadata; the code at cli/tools/upgrade.rs:773 finding `download_dir.join(exe_name)` missing.

Common situations: Upgrading Deno from a PR right after the CI packaging workflow was refactored; disk-full temp dirs producing incomplete extraction; mixed-release/debug artifact layouts.

Related errors

• Downloaded artifact does not contain '{exe_name}'.
• Unsupported platform for PR builds: {}
• Could not find a "{}" artifact for PR #{pr_number}. Availabl
• The `gh` CLI is required for installing from a PR. Install i
• Failed to find PR #{pr_number}: {stderr}

AI-assisted analysis of denoland/deno@9ad36f7a2c (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f4a6e28300f52bb. Report an issue: GitHub.