gastownhall/beads · error

%s

Error message

%s

What it means

In strict mode this is an intentional abort: the source repository passed to `bd migrate-issues` contains no issues, so there is nothing to migrate and --strict refuses to continue. Without --strict the same condition is only a warning on stderr and the command proceeds (producing the earlier 'No issues match the specified filters' output).

Source

Thrown at cmd/bd/migrate_issues.go:222

func validateRepos(ctx context.Context, s storage.DoltStorage, from, to string, strict bool) error {
	// migrate-issues is a round-trip path — opt out of BEADS_MAX_ROWS
	// (designer §4.1) so a misconfigured env doesn't abort migration.
	// Check if source repo has any issues
	fromIssues, err := s.SearchIssues(ctx, "", types.IssueFilter{
		SourceRepo:    &from,
		Limit:         1,
		MaxRows:       0,
		MaxRowsSource: "",
	})
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to check source repository: %w", err)
	}

	if len(fromIssues) == 0 {
		msg := fmt.Sprintf("source repository '%s' has no issues", from)
		if strict {
			return fmt.Errorf("%s", msg)
		}
		if !jsonOutput {
			fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Warning: %s\n", msg)
		}
	}

	// Check if destination repo exists (just a warning)
	toIssues, err := s.SearchIssues(ctx, "", types.IssueFilter{
		SourceRepo:    &to,
		Limit:         1,
		MaxRows:       0,
		MaxRowsSource: "",
	})
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to check destination repository: %w", err)
	}

	if len(toIssues) == 0 && !jsonOutput {

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Verify the --from repo name is spelled correctly
2. Run `bd list --repo <from>` to confirm issues exist locally and run `bd sync` if not
3. Drop --strict if an empty source is an expected no-op
4. Check whether a previous migration already consumed these issues

Example fix

// before: fails strict preflight
cmd bd migrate-issues --from wrong-repo-name --to new-repo --strict
// after: verify the source has issues first
bd list --from old-repo --limit 1
cmd bd migrate-issues --from old-repo --to new-repo --strict

# guard: only pass --strict when the source is known non-empty
count=$(bd list --repo old-repo --json | jq 'length')
if [ "$count" -gt 0 ]; then
  bd migrate-issues --from old-repo --to new-repo --strict
fi

function sourceHasIssues(listOutput) {
  return Array.isArray(listOutput) && listOutput.length > 0;
}

When it happens

Trigger: len(fromIssues) == 0 && strict in validateRepos — the Limit=1 probe query against the --from repo returned zero rows.

Common situations: Typo in the --from repo name; all issues already migrated in a previous run; filters exclude everything; pointing at a freshly cloned repo whose issues were never synced locally.

Related errors

• strict mode: found %d orphaned dependencies
• failed to find candidate issues: %w
• failed to compute migration set: %w
• failed to check dependencies: %w
• migration failed: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/18133aafce5a3b7d. Report an issue: GitHub.