gastownhall/beads · error

parse database response: %w

Error message

parse database response: %w

What it means

RetrieveDatabase fetches a Notion database by ID and unmarshals into Database. A body that can't be parsed into that struct produces this wrapped error.

Source

Thrown at internal/notion/client.go:83

	body, err := c.doRequest(ctx, http.MethodGet, "/data_sources/"+url.PathEscape(dataSourceID), nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	var ds DataSource
	if err := json.Unmarshal(body, &ds); err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("parse data source response: %w", err)
	}
	return &ds, nil
}

func (c *Client) RetrieveDatabase(ctx context.Context, databaseID string) (*Database, error) {
	body, err := c.doRequest(ctx, http.MethodGet, "/databases/"+url.PathEscape(databaseID), nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	var db Database
	if err := json.Unmarshal(body, &db); err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("parse database response: %w", err)
	}
	return &db, nil
}

func (c *Client) CreateDatabase(ctx context.Context, parentPageID, title string) (*Database, error) {
	parentPageID = strings.TrimSpace(parentPageID)
	if parentPageID == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("parent page ID is required")
	}
	title = strings.TrimSpace(title)
	if title == "" {
		title = DefaultDatabaseTitle
	}
	request := map[string]interface{}{
		"parent": map[string]interface{}{
			"type":    "page_id",
			"page_id": parentPageID,
		},

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Verify the ID is a database ID, not a data source ID; use RetrieveDataSource for data sources.
2. Log the raw response body to identify the mismatch.
3. Update the Database struct / client for your Notion API version.

func isNotionParseError(err error) bool {
    return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "parse database response")
}

db, err := client.RetrieveDatabase(ctx, id)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "parse database response") {
        return fmt.Errorf("verify this ID is a database, not a data source: %w", err)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: GET /databases/{id} returns 200 with a body that fails json.Unmarshal into Database.

Common situations: Passing a data_source ID to the databases endpoint (or vice versa); Notion API schema drift; proxy returning non-JSON content.

Related errors

• parse current user response: %w
• parse data source response: %w
• parse create database response: %w
• parse data source query response: %w
• parse create page response: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0a69b9eec21a75c7. Report an issue: GitHub.