docker/cli · error

parsing

Error message

parsing %s: %v

What it means

Returned by getByID when the context's meta.json fails to unmarshal into the base untypedContextMetadata struct (Name/Metadata/Endpoints). The file exists but its top-level JSON is malformed.

Solutions

1. Recreate the context (`docker context rm <name>` then `docker context create`); if rm also fails on parse, remove the dir under ~/.docker/contexts/meta/<hash> manually.
2. Validate the JSON: `jq . ~/.docker/contexts/meta/<hash>/meta.json` to see the exact parse error.
3. Restore meta.json from a prior export/backup.

// Pre-validate meta.json before relying on the store to read it.
func validMetaJSON(p string) bool {
    b, err := os.ReadFile(p)
    if err != nil {
        return false
    }
    return json.Valid(b)
}

When it happens

Trigger: meta.json exists but contains invalid JSON: truncated, hand-edited with a syntax error, wrong encoding (e.g. UTF-16 BOM), or a partial/garbled write.

Common situations: Disk full during a write; manual edits to meta.json; copy/sync corruption; a third-party tool that wrote bad JSON; process killed mid-write.

Related errors

• context metadata is not a valid DockerContext
• error while getting existing contexts
• failed to read metadata
• unexpected hook response type
• conflicting options: cannot specify both --host and…

AI-assisted analysis of docker/cli@4f84911bfe (2026-08-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b2de4f700a80ca83. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at cli/context/store/metadatastore.go:85

	}
	return m, nil
}

func (s *metadataStore) getByID(id contextdir) (Metadata, error) {
	fileName := filepath.Join(s.contextDir(id), metaFile)
	bytes, err := os.ReadFile(fileName)
	if err != nil {
		if errors.Is(err, os.ErrNotExist) {
			return Metadata{}, notFound(fmt.Errorf("context not found: %w", err))
		}
		return Metadata{}, err
	}
	var untyped untypedContextMetadata
	r := Metadata{
		Endpoints: make(map[string]any),
	}
	if err := json.Unmarshal(bytes, &untyped); err != nil {
		return Metadata{}, fmt.Errorf("parsing %s: %v", fileName, err)
	}
	r.Name = untyped.Name
	if r.Metadata, err = parseTypedOrMap(untyped.Metadata, s.config.contextType); err != nil {
		return Metadata{}, fmt.Errorf("parsing %s: %v", fileName, err)
	}
	for k, v := range untyped.Endpoints {
		if r.Endpoints[k], err = parseTypedOrMap(v, s.config.endpointTypes[k]); err != nil {
			return Metadata{}, fmt.Errorf("parsing %s: %v", fileName, err)
		}
	}
	return r, err
}

func (s *metadataStore) remove(name string) error {
	if err := os.RemoveAll(s.contextDir(contextdirOf(name))); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to remove metadata: %w", err)
	}
	return nil

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