gastownhall/beads · error

ambiguous ID: %s matches %d issues

Error message

ambiguous ID: %s matches %d issues

What it means

resolvePartialIDDirect resolves a partial wisp ID by prefix search. If the prefix matches more than one issue, bd refuses to guess and reports the match count so the caller can supply a longer, unambiguous prefix.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/wisp.go:383

// resolvePartialIDDirect resolves a partial ID directly from store
func resolvePartialIDDirect(ctx context.Context, partial string) (string, error) {
	// Try direct lookup first
	if issue, err := store.GetIssue(ctx, partial); err == nil {
		return issue.ID, nil
	}
	// Search by prefix
	issues, err := store.SearchIssues(ctx, "", types.IssueFilter{
		IDs: []string{partial + "*"},
	})
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	if len(issues) == 1 {
		return issues[0].ID, nil
	}
	if len(issues) > 1 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("ambiguous ID: %s matches %d issues", partial, len(issues))
	}
	return "", fmt.Errorf("not found: %s", partial)
}

var wispListCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "list",
	Short: "List all wisps in current context",
	Long: `List all wisps (ephemeral molecules) in the current context.

Wisps are issues with Ephemeral=true in the main database. They are stored
locally but not synced via git.

The list shows:
  - ID: Issue ID of the wisp
  - Title: Wisp title
  - Status: Current status (open, in_progress, closed)
  - Started: When the wisp was created
  - Updated: Last modification time

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Use a longer ID prefix that matches exactly one issue
2. Use the full issue ID
3. Run `bd wisp list` (or bd list) to find the exact ID first

Example fix

// before
bd wisp create bd-w1
// after
bd wisp create bd-w1a2b3c

matches, err := store.SearchIssues(ctx, "", types.IssueFilter{IDs: []string{prefix + "*"}})
if err != nil { return err }
if len(matches) > 1 {
    return fmt.Errorf("prefix %q is ambiguous (%d matches); use a longer ID", prefix, len(matches))
}

When it happens

Trigger: `bd wisp create <prefix>` (via runWispCreateCore) where the given prefix matches ≥2 issue IDs.

Common situations: Very short prefixes in a database with many similarly-prefixed IDs (e.g. many wisps from the same proto); copy-pasting only the first few characters of an ID.

Related errors

• ErrAmbiguousID
• resolving --deps target %q: %w
• failed to resolve %s: %w
• epic '%s' not found: %v
• issue '%s' not found: %v

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f16f95aa16cd1ea6. Report an issue: GitHub.