gastownhall/beads · error

failed to close duplicate: %w

Error message

failed to close duplicate: %w

What it means

Wraps store.CloseIssue failure after the dependency edge was successfully added in runDuplicate. The duplicate link exists but the lifecycle close of the duplicate issue failed, leaving the issue in an inconsistent intermediate state (linked but still open). Because the dep was already written, retrying is safe — the same 'duplicates' edge is idempotent in practice or the command should be re-run carefully.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/duplicate.go:113

	canonical, err = store.GetIssue(ctx, canonicalID)
	if err != nil || canonical == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("canonical issue not found: %s", canonicalID)
	}

	// Add a "duplicates" dependency edge (duplicate → canonical)
	dep := &types.Dependency{
		IssueID:     duplicateID,
		DependsOnID: canonicalID,
		Type:        types.DepDuplicates,
	}
	if err := store.AddDependency(ctx, dep, actor); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to add duplicate link: %w", err)
	}

	// Close the duplicate issue through the lifecycle operation so it records
	// the complete closure state.
	if err := store.CloseIssue(ctx, duplicateID, "", actor, ""); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to close duplicate: %w", err)
	}

	commandDidWrite.Store(true)

	if isJSONOutput() {
		return outputJSON(map[string]interface{}{
			"duplicate": duplicateID,
			"canonical": canonicalID,
			"status":    "closed",
		})
	}

	fmt.Printf("%s Marked %s as duplicate of %s (closed)\n", ui.RenderPass("✓"), duplicateID, canonicalID)
	return nil
}

func runSupersede(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
	if usesProxiedServer() {

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Check the issue state with `bd show <duplicate-id>` — it may already be closed; if so, nothing else is needed
2. If still open, re-run `bd duplicate` (edge addition is tolerated) or `bd close <duplicate-id>` directly
3. Check storage health if write errors persist
4. Resolve concurrency: ensure no other agent is closing the same issue simultaneously

Example fix

// before
Error: failed to close duplicate: storage write failed
$ bd show bd-42  # still open
// after
$ bd close bd-42 --reason "duplicate of bd-17"

iss, err := store.GetIssue(ctx, duplicateID)
if err != nil { return err }
if iss.Status == types.StatusClosed { return nil } // already closed, nothing to do

if err := store.CloseIssue(ctx, duplicateID, "", actor, ""); err != nil {
    if iss, gerr := store.GetIssue(ctx, duplicateID); gerr == nil && iss.Status == types.StatusClosed {
        return nil // already closed concurrently; treat as success
    }
    return fmt.Errorf("failed to close duplicate: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: CloseIssue returns an error: issue already closed with a conflicting state, storage write failure, validation of closure fields rejected, or a driver error mid-transaction.

Common situations: A concurrent process closed the issue first; DB lock/timeout during the close write; store-level lifecycle validation failure; disk full during the write.

Related errors

• canonical issue not found: %s
• failed to add duplicate link: %w
• %w: %s
• %w: %w
• no store is open for this workspace

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/755dd4dae976df6d. Report an issue: GitHub.