docker/compose · error

failed to execute bake: %w

Error message

failed to execute bake: %w

What it means

While streaming buildx bake's progress from its stdout, compose reads line by line; any read error other than io.EOF (normal end) and os.ErrClosed (bake stopped early on purpose) aborts with this error wrapping the read failure. In practice the pipe broke — typically the buildx process died (killed, OOM, plugin crash) or wrote garbage that closed the stream unexpectedly.

Source

Thrown at pkg/compose/build_bake.go:370

	var errMessage []string
	reader := bufio.NewReader(pipe)

	err = cmd.Start()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	eg.Go(cmd.Wait)
	for {
		line, readErr := reader.ReadString('\n')
		if readErr != nil {
			if readErr == io.EOF {
				break
			}
			if errors.Is(readErr, os.ErrClosed) {
				logrus.Debugf("bake stopped")
				break
			}
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to execute bake: %w", readErr)
		}
		decoder := json.NewDecoder(strings.NewReader(line))
		var status client.SolveStatus
		err := decoder.Decode(&status)
		if err != nil {
			if strings.HasPrefix(line, "ERROR: ") {
				errMessage = append(errMessage, line[7:])
			} else {
				errMessage = append(errMessage, line)
			}
			continue
		}
		ch <- &status
	}
	close(ch) // stop build progress UI

	err = eg.Wait()
	if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to ddc4b044b6)

Solutions

1. Re-run the build — transient process deaths (OOM, daemon restart) usually do not recur
2. Check dmesg/journal for OOM kills of buildx and free memory or raise limits before retrying
3. Upgrade the buildx plugin to a stable release (docker buildx version; reinstall via dockerCLI plugin management)
4. If it reproduces deterministically, capture the failing service/target and run docker buildx bake <target> directly to get buildx's own error

if err := composeBuild(); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to execute bake") && isTransient(errors.Unwrap(err)) {
		// transient pipe/process failure: back off and retry once
		time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
		return composeBuild()
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: docker compose build (bake path) where the buildx plugin process is killed mid-build (OOM killer, manual kill, container runtime stop); buildx crashing on a malformed definition; the stdout pipe being closed from the child side without EOF.

Common situations: Memory-constrained CI machines OOM-killing buildx during large builds; upgrading/downgrading the buildx plugin while a build runs; buildx bugs crashing on specific bake targets; dockerd restarts mid-build.

Related errors

• build result not found in Bake metadata for service %s
• reading blob %s: %w
• invalid PID (%d): only positive PIDs are allowed
• process with PID %d is still running
• copying %q: %w

AI-assisted analysis of docker/compose@ddc4b044b6 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/22dbb6803cfa0b7a. Report an issue: GitHub.