What causes "not found" in gastownhall/beads?

Use errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation) to detect this class; then inspect the wrapped cause with errors.As/Unwrap for specifics.

gastownhall/beads · error

not found

Error message

not found

What it means

publicCreateValidationError is the internal wrapper that tags every deterministic public-create refusal with storage.ErrValidation: fmt.Errorf("%w: %w", storage.ErrValidation, err). Callers use errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation) to distinguish caller mistakes (bad input, invalid relationships) from infrastructure failures, which are passed through unclassified.

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/state.go:45

// to choose — Reader.Get's issue-then-wisp lookup finds an ephemeral row on its
// own, which is how the DIRECT route acquires wisp support it never had: it
// used to call store.GetLabels, which only ever reads the durable table.
//
// Resolution stays a front-door job, and stays shared with `bd label`:
// GetRequest.ID is exact by contract, so the partial-id affordance the direct
// route offers cannot live below this line.
func resolveStateTarget(ctx context.Context, issueID string) (*issueops.IssueDetails, error) {
	fullID, err := resolveLabelTarget(ctx, issueID)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	reader, err := openIssueReader()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	details, err := reader.Get(ctx, issueops.GetRequest{ID: fullID})
	if errors.Is(err, storage.ErrNotFound) {
		return nil, errors.New("not found")
	}
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return details, nil
}

var stateCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:     "state <issue-id> <dimension>",
	GroupID: "issues",
	Short:   "Query the current value of a state dimension",
	Long: `Query the current value of a state dimension from an issue's labels.

State labels follow the convention <dimension>:<value>, for example:
  patrol:active
  mode:degraded
  health:healthy

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Use errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation) to detect this class; then inspect the wrapped cause with errors.As/Unwrap for specifics.
Fix the request field the wrapped error names (ID length, dependency type, duplicate edge, etc.).
Do not retry: this is a deterministic input problem, not transient.

Example fix

// before
if err := store.ExecuteCreate(ctx, req); err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
// after
if err := store.ExecuteCreate(ctx, req); err != nil {
    if errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation) { return fmt.Errorf("invalid create request: %w", err) }
    return err
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

if err := ValidatePublicCreateRequest(req); err != nil { return err } // pre-validate with the exported helper

Type guard

func isValidationErr(err error) bool { return errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation) }

Try / catch

err := store.ExecuteCreate(ctx, req)
switch {
case errors.Is(err, storage.ErrValidation):
    // deterministic input refusal; inspect wrapped cause
case err != nil:
    // infrastructure/commit error; safe to retry/log
}

Prevention

Run ValidatePublicCreateRequest before ExecuteCreate.
Treat ErrValidation as non-retryable and surface to the caller.
Use errors.Unwrap loop / errors.As to extract the specific cause.

When it happens

Trigger: Any validation failure in ValidatePublicCreateRequest, PreparePublicCreateRequest, validatePublicCreateDependencies, or the deterministic-refusal branches of ClassifyPublicCreateError; the wrap happens at public_create.go:121.

Common situations: API consumers checking error types see ErrValidation unexpectedly when they sent malformed create requests; test authors asserting on error identity chain.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/176f1132a4c243cf. Report an issue: GitHub.