What causes "LoadCreateContext: read custom types: %w" in gastownhall/beads?

Unwrap to find the underlying storage error

LoadCreateContext: read custom types: %w

Error message

LoadCreateContext: read custom types: %w

What it means

Wrapping error from ConfigUseCaseImpl.LoadCreateContext at internal/storage/domain/config.go:257. Raised when cfgRepo.GetCustomTypes(ctx) fails. LoadCreateContext had already read issue_prefix and allowed prefixes; failure at this point means the custom issue-type configuration could not be loaded, blocking issue creation.

Source

Thrown at internal/storage/domain/config.go:257

func (u *configUseCaseImpl) SetLocalMetadata(ctx context.Context, key, value string) error {
	if err := u.cfgRepo.SetLocalMetadata(ctx, key, value); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("SetLocalMetadata: %w", err)
	}
	return nil
}

func (u *configUseCaseImpl) LoadCreateContext(ctx context.Context) (CreateContext, error) {
	prefix, err := u.cfgRepo.GetConfig(ctx, "issue_prefix")
	if err != nil {
		return CreateContext{}, fmt.Errorf("LoadCreateContext: read issue_prefix: %w", err)
	}
	allowed, err := u.cfgRepo.GetAllowedPrefixes(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return CreateContext{}, fmt.Errorf("LoadCreateContext: read allowed_prefixes: %w", err)
	}
	customTypes, err := u.cfgRepo.GetCustomTypes(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return CreateContext{}, fmt.Errorf("LoadCreateContext: read custom types: %w", err)
	}
	customStatuses, err := u.cfgRepo.GetCustomStatuses(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return CreateContext{}, fmt.Errorf("LoadCreateContext: read custom statuses: %w", err)
	}
	infraTypes, err := u.GetInfraTypes(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return CreateContext{}, fmt.Errorf("LoadCreateContext: read infra types: %w", err)
	}
	return CreateContext{
		IssuePrefix:     prefix,
		AllowedPrefixes: allowed,
		CustomTypes:     customTypes,
		CustomStatuses:  customStatuses,
		InfraTypes:      infraTypes,
	}, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Unwrap to find the underlying storage error
Check for pending schema migrations and apply them (bd version vs DB version mismatch)
Verify custom-types storage integrity
Retry after storage is healthy

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// verify custom types are readable before create flows
if _, err := store.GetCustomTypes(ctx); err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("custom types unreadable, check migrations: %w", err)
}

Try / catch

cc, err := uc.LoadCreateContext(ctx)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "read custom types") {
	if isSchemaMismatch(errors.Unwrap(err)) {
		runMigrations() // align DB schema with bd version
		cc, err = uc.LoadCreateContext(ctx)
	}
}
return err

Prevention

Run schema migrations after upgrading bd
Test GetCustomTypes directly to isolate the failing read
Avoid mixing bd client versions against one database
Retry transient DB errors with backoff

When it happens

Trigger: Calling LoadCreateContext when GetCustomTypes fails — query error on the custom-types store, DB connection failure, cancelled/expired context.

Common situations: Custom types were added by a newer bd version and the storage schema/migration is out of date; corrupted custom-types rows; transient DB outage.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7ad9bfd7578cbffa. Report an issue: GitHub.