hashicorp/nomad · error

Error loading %s: %s

Error message

Error loading %s: %s

What it means

LoadConfig(path) dispatches to LoadConfigDir for directories or ParseConfigFile for single files. When parsing a single config file fails, the error is wrapped as 'Error loading <path>: <reason>'. The wrapped message carries the actual parse/validation failure from ParseConfigFile (e.g. HCL/JSON syntax errors).

Source

Thrown at command/agent/config.go:3271

}

// LoadConfig loads the configuration at the given path, regardless if its a file or
// directory. Called for each -config to build up the runtime config value. Do not apply any
// default values, defaults should be added once in DefaultConfig
func LoadConfig(path string) (*Config, error) {
	fi, err := os.Stat(path)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	if fi.IsDir() {
		return LoadConfigDir(path)
	}

	cleaned := filepath.Clean(path)
	config, err := ParseConfigFile(cleaned)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Error loading %s: %s", cleaned, err)
	}

	config.Files = append(config.Files, cleaned)
	return config, nil
}

// LoadConfigDir loads all the configurations in the given directory
// in alphabetical order.
func LoadConfigDir(dir string) (*Config, error) {
	f, err := os.Open(dir)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	defer f.Close()

	fi, err := f.Stat()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped underlying error after the colon — it names the exact parse problem and line
2. Validate the file with hclfmt or a JSON linter
3. Convert JSON configs to HCL carefully; they are not interchangeable syntactically
4. Confirm the path is the intended file and is readable

Example fix

// before (config.json)
{"datacenter": "dc1",,}
// after
{"datacenter": "dc1"}

if fi, err := os.Stat(path); err == nil && !fi.IsDir() {
    if err := validateConfigFile(path); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("config file %s invalid before load: %w", path, err)
    }
}

config, err := agentcfg.LoadConfig(path)
if err != nil {
    var perr *os.PathError
    if errors.As(err, &perr) { return perr }
    return fmt.Errorf("load %s: %w", path, err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: consul agent -config-file=<path> where path is a file whose contents fail ParseConfigFile — invalid HCL/JSON syntax, unknown keys, wrong types, or unreadable content.

Common situations: Typos in JSON/HCL config files, mixing JSON syntax into .hcl files, trailing commas in JSON, or passing a file that contains config from another tool.

Related errors

• configuration path must be a directory: %s
• failed to decode HCL file %s: %w
• failed to parse HCL file %s: %w
• only one storage block is allowed
• failed to parse config:

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f979d86bde8517d1. Report an issue: GitHub.