golangci/golangci-lint · error

[%s] validate: %w

Error message

[%s] validate: %w

What it means

During migrate's `preRunE`, the v1 configuration file is validated against the v1 JSON schema. If validation fails with an error that is NOT a jsonschema.ValidationError (i.e. an unexpected/non-schema failure such as an unreadable file), it is wrapped as `[%s] validate: %w`. Schema validation failures with details are instead printed and replaced by a generic message.

Source

Thrown at pkg/commands/migrate.go:161

	}

	if c.opts.skipValidation {
		return nil
	}

	usedConfigFile := c.viper.ConfigFileUsed()
	if usedConfigFile == "" {
		c.log.Warnf("No config file detected")
		os.Exit(exitcodes.NoConfigFileDetected)
	}

	c.log.Infof("Validating v1 configuration file: %s", usedConfigFile)

	err := validateConfiguration(jsonsch.V1Schema, usedConfigFile)
	if err != nil {
		var v *jsonschema.ValidationError
		if !errors.As(err, &v) {
			return fmt.Errorf("[%s] validate: %w", usedConfigFile, err)
		}

		printValidationDetail(cmd, v.DetailedOutput())

		return errors.New("the configuration contains invalid elements")
	}

	return nil
}

func (c *migrateCommand) persistentPreRunE(_ *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
	c.log.Infof("%s", c.buildInfo.String())

	loader := config.NewBaseLoader(c.log.Child(logutils.DebugKeyConfigReader), c.viper, c.opts.LoaderOptions, fakeloader.NewConfig(), args)

	// Loads the configuration just to get the effective path of the configuration.
	err := loader.Load()
	if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to ed7a235d2d)

Solutions

1. Fix the underlying error shown after this wrapper (often a YAML/JSON parse error).
2. Validate the config file syntax with a YAML/JSON linter before running migrate.
3. Ensure the config file exists and is readable by the current user.
4. Run `golangci-lint config verify` to get schema validation details.

Example fix

# before (.golangci.yml with tabs)
linters:
	enable: [govet]
# after (spaces)
linters:
  enable:
    - govet

// syntax-check the config as YAML before validating against the schema
var v any
if err := yaml.Unmarshal(data, &v); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("invalid YAML: %w", err)
}

err := validateConfiguration(jsonsch.V1Schema, file)
var ve *jsonschema.ValidationError
if err != nil && !errors.As(err, &ve) {
    return fmt.Errorf("[%s] validate: %w", file, err) // non-schema failure: fix syntax/IO first
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running migrate when the config file cannot be read/parsed by the validator for a non-schema reason — e.g. malformed YAML/JSON that the schema loader itself chokes on, a missing file, or an I/O error opening the config.

Common situations: Config file with syntax errors (bad indentation, tabs); file deleted between load and validation; permission issues reading the config; unusual encoding (BOM, non-UTF8).

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• can't load config: %w
• YAML decoding: %w
• YAML decode file %s: %w
• unsupported file type: %s
• can't load config: %w

AI-assisted analysis of golangci/golangci-lint@ed7a235d2d (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8918b9a7b4ae014a. Report an issue: GitHub.