What causes "cannot use multiple conflict resolution flags" in gastownhall/beads?

Pass exactly one conflict-resolution flag and rerun the command

cannot use multiple conflict resolution flags

Error message

cannot use multiple conflict resolution flags

What it means

ADO sync conflict resolution accepts at most one strategy flag (--prefer-local, --prefer-ado, --prefer-newer, etc.). getADOConflictStrategy counts how many were set and refuses with this error when more than one is supplied, because a single unambiguous strategy must be chosen.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/ado.go:127

	// ADOConflictPreferADO always uses the Azure DevOps version.
	ADOConflictPreferADO ADOConflictStrategy = "prefer-ado"
)

// getADOConflictStrategy determines the conflict strategy from flag values.
// Returns error if multiple conflicting flags are set.
func getADOConflictStrategy(preferLocal, preferADO, preferNewer bool) (ADOConflictStrategy, error) {
	flagsSet := 0
	if preferLocal {
		flagsSet++
	}
	if preferADO {
		flagsSet++
	}
	if preferNewer {
		flagsSet++
	}
	if flagsSet > 1 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("cannot use multiple conflict resolution flags")
	}

	if preferLocal {
		return ADOConflictPreferLocal, nil
	}
	if preferADO {
		return ADOConflictPreferADO, nil
	}
	return ADOConflictPreferNewer, nil
}

func init() {
	// Add subcommands to ado
	adoCmd.AddCommand(adoSyncCmd)
	adoCmd.AddCommand(adoStatusCmd)
	adoCmd.AddCommand(adoProjectsCmd)

	// Add flags to sync command

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Pass exactly one conflict-resolution flag and rerun the command
Remove the redundant flag from your alias/script wrapper
Omit all strategy flags to use the default conflict behavior

Example fix

// before
bd ado sync --prefer-local --prefer-newer
// after
bd ado sync --prefer-newer

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

flags := 0
for _, f := range []bool{preferLocal, preferADO, preferNewer} {
    if f { flags++ }
}
if flags > 1 { return errors.New("pass at most one conflict resolution flag") }

Try / catch

if err := runADOSync(cmd, args); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "multiple conflict resolution flags") {
    cmd.Usage()
    return err
}

Prevention

Pass exactly one --prefer-* flag
Audit shell aliases that append default strategy flags
Omit flags to accept the default strategy

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking an `bd ado sync`-family command with two or more mutually exclusive conflict-resolution flags set simultaneously (e.g. --prefer-local --prefer-newer).

Common situations: Copy-pasting command examples that each use a different flag; scripted wrappers accumulating flags across versions; aliases appending a default strategy on top of a user-supplied one.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c0bcd791d22011e9. Report an issue: GitHub.