gastownhall/beads · error

failed to set sync branch: %w

Error message

failed to set sync branch: %w

What it means

runTeamWizard persists the chosen sync branch via store.SetConfig(ctx, "sync.branch", syncBranch). If the Dolt-backed storage layer fails to write that config key, the error is wrapped as 'failed to set sync branch: %w' and the wizard aborts. It signals a storage/config write failure, not a git problem.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/init_team.go:90

		branchName, err := readLineWithContext(ctx, reader, os.Stdin)
		if err != nil {
			if isCanceled(err) {
				return err
			}
			branchName = ""
		}
		branchName = strings.TrimSpace(branchName)

		if branchName == "" {
			syncBranch = "beads-metadata"
		} else {
			syncBranch = branchName
		}

		fmt.Printf("\n%s Sync branch set to: %s\n", ui.RenderPass("✓"), syncBranch)

		if err := store.SetConfig(ctx, "sync.branch", syncBranch); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to set sync branch: %w", err)
		}

		// Create the sync branch if it doesn't exist
		fmt.Printf("\n%s Creating sync branch...\n", ui.RenderAccent("▶"))

		if err := createSyncBranch(syncBranch); err != nil {
			fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Warning: failed to create sync branch: %v\n", err)
			fmt.Println("  You can create it manually: git checkout -b", syncBranch)
		} else {
			fmt.Printf("%s Sync branch created\n", ui.RenderPass("✓"))
		}

	} else {
		fmt.Printf("%s Direct commits to %s\n", ui.RenderPass("✓"), currentBranch)
		syncBranch = currentBranch
	}

	// Step 3: Configure team settings

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Check the wrapped error to see the underlying storage failure (DB connectivity vs permissions)
2. Verify the Dolt database is reachable and started (`bd doctor` or dolt sql -q 'select 1')
3. Ensure the .beads/data directory and files are writable by the current user
4. Re-run `bd init` to repair/recreate the local database, then retry the team wizard

Example fix

// before
if err := store.SetConfig(ctx, "sync.branch", syncBranch); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("failed to set sync branch: %w", err)
}
// after (caller-side check before wizard)
if err := store.SetConfig(ctx, "sync.branch", "test-probe"); err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "storage unavailable:", err)
    os.Exit(1)
}

ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 5*time.Second)
defer cancel()
if err := store.Ping(ctx); err != nil { return fmt.Errorf("store unavailable: %w", err) }

if err := runTeamWizard(ctx, st); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to set sync branch") {
        log.Printf("storage write failed: %v", err) // inspect wrapped cause
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling runTeamWizard (via `bd init --team`) when the underlying Dolt store cannot execute the config upsert: database closed/unavailable, connection failure, schema/permission error, or read-only database.

Common situations: Dolt server not running or wrong connection settings; database directory not writable; corrupted local Dolt DB; store closed earlier in the command; disk full.

Related errors

• failed to set routing.contributor: %w
• failed to enable team mode: %w
• failed to set team sync branch: %w
• db: SetConfig %s: %w
• ErrExec

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/90636f11b4060474. Report an issue: GitHub.