denoland/deno · error

failed to resolve startup order {}: {error}

Error message

failed to resolve startup order {}: {error}

What it means

Build-script panic in cli/build.rs. After DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE is read, the path is canonicalized (std::fs::canonicalize) to emit a stable cargo:rerun-if-changed value. Canonicalization fails when the path does not exist, is not accessible due to permissions, or a component is a broken symlink, and the error is reported with the offending path.

Source

Thrown at cli/build.rs:471

  }

  let target = env::var("TARGET").unwrap();
  match target.as_str() {
    "aarch64-apple-darwin"
    | "aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu"
    | "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu" => {}
    _ => return,
  }

  let source =
    PathBuf::from(env::var_os(ORDER_FILE_ENV).unwrap_or_else(|| {
      panic!(
        "{ORDER_FILE_ENV} must point to an order generated from the baseline \
       release binary using the default linker layout"
      )
    }));
  let source = source.canonicalize().unwrap_or_else(|error| {
    panic!(
      "failed to resolve startup order {}: {error}",
      source.display()
    )
  });
  println!("cargo:rerun-if-changed={}", source.display());

  let contents = if source.extension().is_some_and(|ext| ext == "zst") {
    let compressed = std::fs::read(&source).unwrap_or_else(|error| {
      panic!("failed to read startup order {}: {error}", source.display())
    });
    zstd::stream::decode_all(compressed.as_slice()).unwrap_or_else(|error| {
      panic!(
        "failed to decompress startup order {}: {error}",
        source.display()
      )
    })
  } else {
    std::fs::read(&source).unwrap_or_else(|error| {

View on GitHub (pinned to 9ad36f7a2c)

Solutions

1. Check the path exists and is absolute: `ls -l "$DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE"` and export an absolute path
2. Regenerate or re-download the order-file artifact if it was lost
3. Fix directory execute/read permissions on every component of the path for the build user

Example fix

# before
export DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE=orders/deno.order   # relative, wrong cwd
# after
export DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE="$PWD/orders/deno.order"

p="${DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE:?unset}"
[ -f "$p" ] || { echo "order file not found: $p"; exit 2; }
[ -r "$p" ] || { echo "order file not readable: $p"; exit 2; }
export DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE="$(cd "$(dirname "$p")" && pwd)/$(basename "$p")"

When it happens

Trigger: DENO_USE_STARTUP_ORDER=1 with DENO_STARTUP_ORDER_FILE pointing to a nonexistent path (typo, wrong working directory, relative path resolved against the crate dir), a deleted artifact, or a file inside a container volume the build user cannot traverse.

Common situations: CI passes a path relative to a different job's workspace, or the order-file artifact was never produced/uploaded so the path refers to a missing file; locally, a moved or renamed order file.

Related errors

• {ENABLE_ENV} must be unset or set to 1
• startup ordering is only supported by the release profile
• {ORDER_FILE_ENV} must point to an order generated from the b
• failed to read startup order {}: {error}
• failed to decompress startup order {}: {error}

AI-assisted analysis of denoland/deno@9ad36f7a2c (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dd85e5e622a1f6cb. Report an issue: GitHub.