What causes "git rev-parse timed out after %s" in gastownhall/beads?

Retry the auto-export once the transient slowness clears

git rev-parse timed out after %s

Error message

git rev-parse timed out after %s

What it means

gitIndexLockPath runs `git rev-parse --git-dir` under a context timeout to locate the git directory for the lock preflight. If rev-parse exceeds gitAddTimeout, this error is returned and the lock check is abandoned, failing the git add preflight.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/export_auto.go:894

	}
	if err != nil {
		if trimmed := strings.TrimSpace(string(out)); trimmed != "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("%w: %s", err, trimmed)
		}
		return err
	}
	return nil
}

func gitIndexLockPath(path string, env []string) (string, error) {
	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), gitAddTimeout)
	defer cancel()
	cmd := exec.CommandContext(ctx, "git", "rev-parse", "--git-dir")
	cmd.Dir = filepath.Dir(path)
	cmd.Env = env
	out, err := cmd.CombinedOutput()
	if ctx.Err() == context.DeadlineExceeded {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("git rev-parse timed out after %s", gitAddTimeout)
	}
	if err != nil {
		if trimmed := strings.TrimSpace(string(out)); trimmed != "" {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("%w: %s", err, trimmed)
		}
		return "", err
	}
	gitDir := strings.TrimSpace(string(out))
	if gitDir == "" {
		return "", nil
	}
	if !filepath.IsAbs(gitDir) {
		gitDir = filepath.Join(filepath.Dir(path), gitDir)
	}
	return filepath.Join(gitDir, "index.lock"), nil
}

// scrubGitHookEnv returns env with the GIT_* variables that can poison

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Retry the auto-export once the transient slowness clears
Investigate filesystem/git health (df, iostat, stray git processes) in the repo
Raise gitAddTimeout if the environment is consistently slow; otherwise stage manually with `git add`

Example fix

// before
// git rev-parse timed out after 10s
// after
# verify repo is responsive
git rev-parse --git-dir
bd sync

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// Confirm git itself is responsive before automating
ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 10*time.Second)
defer cancel()
out, err := exec.CommandContext(ctx, "git", "rev-parse", "--git-dir").Output()
if err != nil || len(bytes.TrimSpace(out)) == 0 {
    fmt.Println("git not responsive or not a repo; abort auto-export")
}

Try / catch

if err := autoExport(); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "rev-parse timed out") {
    // Transient slowness — retry after backoff or stage manually
    time.Sleep(5 * time.Second)
    runCmd("git", "add", ".beads/issues.jsonl")
}

Prevention

Monitor filesystem latency on CI runners hosting large repos
Avoid competing heavy git operations during auto-export windows
Use local clones rather than network mounts for automated bd runs
Re-run with a longer timeout for very large worktrees

When it happens

Trigger: `git rev-parse --git-dir` spawned by gitIndexLockPath (from gitAddFile during auto-export) hits context.DeadlineExceeded — slow filesystem or hung git subprocess.

Common situations: NFS/network-mounted repos, overloaded CI machines, git waiting on credential/maintenance hooks, or heavy disk I/O delaying even rev-parse.

Understand the failure class

Timeouts: ETIMEDOUT, deadlines, and hung requests — what actually expires when a request times out.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/781abee2e36c1681. Report an issue: GitHub.