gastownhall/beads · error

add label '%s' on %s: %w

Error message

add label '%s' on %s: %w

What it means

During label propagation from a parent to its children, each child's AddLabel inside a transaction is wrapped with this error naming the label and the child ID. If any child fails, the whole transactHonoringAutoCommit transaction aborts, so partial propagation is not committed. The wrapped %w is the underlying storage error.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/label.go:438

		children, err := store.SearchIssues(ctx, "", types.IssueFilter{ParentID: &parentID})
		if err != nil {
			return HandleErrorRespectJSON("searching children of %s: %v", parentID, err)
		}

		if len(children) == 0 {
			if jsonOutput {
				return outputJSON([]map[string]interface{}{})
			}
			fmt.Printf("No children found for %s\n", parentID)
			return nil
		}

		commitMsg := fmt.Sprintf("bd: propagate label '%s' from %s to %d children", label, parentID, len(children))
		err = transactHonoringAutoCommit(ctx, store, commitMsg, func(tx storage.Transaction) error {
			for _, child := range children {
				if err := tx.AddLabel(ctx, child.ID, label, actor); err != nil {
					return fmt.Errorf("add label '%s' on %s: %w", label, child.ID, err)
				}
			}
			return nil
		})
		if err != nil {
			return HandleErrorRespectJSON("label propagate: %v", err)
		}

		if jsonOutput {
			results := make([]map[string]interface{}, 0, len(children))
			for _, child := range children {
				results = append(results, map[string]interface{}{
					"status":   "propagated",
					"issue_id": child.ID,
					"label":    label,
				})
			}
			return outputJSON(results)

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Re-run the propagate command after fixing the storage issue; the transaction is atomic so no partial labels remain.
2. Check the underlying %w error for the real cause (connection, constraint, or not-found).
3. Remove or repair the failing child issue, then propagate again.

# pre-check children exist and parent has children before propagating
bd show "$PARENT" >/dev/null

out=$(bd label propagate "$PARENT" "$LABEL" 2>&1) || {
  echo "$out" >&2           # inspect wrapped child-level cause
  # storage errors are transient-safe: transaction rolled back, safe to retry
  bd label propagate "$PARENT" "$LABEL"
}

When it happens

Trigger: `bd label propagate` (or the propagate path in label.go) where the parent has children and tx.AddLabel fails for a child — e.g. a storage/transaction error, constraint conflict, or the child having been deleted mid-transaction.

Common situations: Large hierarchies where one child record is corrupt or locked; storage backend errors (Dolt/driver failures); races where a child is removed while propagation runs.

Related errors

• failed to add label %s to %s: %w
• graph create: %w
• reading gate %s: %w
• batch create: %w
• node %q: updating metadata refs: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/afb56e030c503471. Report an issue: GitHub.