gastownhall/beads · error

get molecule children: %w

Error message

get molecule children: %w

What it means

GetMoleculeLastActivity wraps any failure from GetDependentsWithMetadata (the query fetching a molecule's child issues) with the 'get molecule children' prefix. It indicates the storage/query layer failed while enumerating dependent issues for the molecule, before last-activity computation could start. The underlying cause is preserved via %w so callers can errors.Is/As it.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/mol_port.go:300

		}
		stats.Total++
		switch dependent.Status {
		case types.StatusClosed:
			stats.Completed++
		case types.StatusInProgress:
			stats.InProgress++
			if stats.CurrentStepID == "" {
				stats.CurrentStepID = dependent.ID
			}
		}
	}
	return stats, nil
}

func (r uowMolReader) GetMoleculeLastActivity(ctx context.Context, moleculeID string) (*types.MoleculeLastActivity, error) {
	dependents, err := r.GetDependentsWithMetadata(ctx, moleculeID)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("get molecule children: %w", err)
	}

	var children []types.Issue
	for _, dependent := range dependents {
		if dependent.DependencyType != types.DepParentChild {
			continue
		}
		children = append(children, dependent.Issue)
	}

	if len(children) == 0 {
		root, err := r.GetIssue(ctx, moleculeID)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("molecule %s not found: %w", moleculeID, err)
		}
		return &types.MoleculeLastActivity{
			MoleculeID:   moleculeID,
			LastActivity: root.UpdatedAt,

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped cause (%w) with errors.Is/As or by reading the full error chain to find the storage-level failure
2. Verify the local database is healthy (run bd doctor / re-open the repo; check .beads storage)
3. Retry the command — transient locks or I/O failures often resolve on retry
4. If the schema is out of date after a beads upgrade, run the project's upgrade/migration path (bd upgrade/migrate) before retrying

Example fix

// before: only seeing 'get molecule children: ...'
last, err := reader.GetMoleculeLastActivity(ctx, molID)
// after: unwrap and classify the root cause
last, err := reader.GetMoleculeLastActivity(ctx, molID)
if err != nil {
	if errors.Is(err, sql.ErrConnDone) || errors.Is(err, context.DeadlineExceeded) {
		last, err = reader.GetMoleculeLastActivity(ctx, molID) // retry transient
	}
	return fmt.Errorf("last activity: %w", err)
}

// verify the molecule's dependents are queryable first
if _, err := reader.GetDependentsWithMetadata(ctx, moleculeID); err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("cannot read molecule %s: %w", moleculeID, err)
}

func isStorageErr(err error) bool {
	return err != nil && !errors.Is(err, sql.ErrNoRows) && !errors.Is(err, context.Canceled)
}

last, err := reader.GetMoleculeLastActivity(ctx, molID)
if err != nil {
	var inner error
	if errors.As(err, &inner) && isTransientStorage(inner) {
		// retry once after backoff
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling bd mol last-activity (runMolLastActivityProxiedServer) when the database query for dependents fails: storage driver errors, corrupt or locked Dolt database, context cancellation/timeouts, or an internal error in the dependents-with-metadata query.

Common situations: Running the command against a corrupted or unavailable .beads/Dolt database; a killed or mid-migration local DB; a stale database schema after a beads version upgrade; transient storage I/O failure.

Understand the failure class

Background: Database query failed: Internal Server Error 500s wrapping SQL, Prisma, and connection failures — what to check first — this error's family across 16 libraries.

Related errors

• determining wisp status for %s: %w
• failed to get issue %s: %w
• failed to remove relates-to %s -> %s: %w
• failed to get epic: %v
• failed to get issue: %v

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5dd606e6deffc24d. Report an issue: GitHub.