hashicorp/terraform · warning

No file or directory at

Error message

No file or directory at %s

What it means

Thrown by FmtCommand.fmt when os.Stat fails for a path argument supplied to `terraform fmt`. Stat is the existence/type gate before formatting; any error (not just NotExist) triggers this. The path is the normalized form (after normalizePath).

Solutions

1. Verify the path exists and is spelled correctly: `ls -l <path>`.
2. Use an absolute path or ensure relative paths resolve from the shell's cwd.
3. Expand tildes explicitly ($HOME) or rely on the shell, not Terraform, to expand them.
4. Check parent directory execute permissions if traversal is the issue.

Example fix

// before
//   terraform fmt ./infrastructure/main.tf   # typo: dir is 'infra'
// after
//   terraform fmt ./infra/main.tf

func pathExists(p string) error {
    if _, err := os.Stat(p); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("no file or directory at %s: %w", p, err)
    }
    return nil
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a path that does not exist, is a broken symlink, lives behind a permission wall (EACCES), or whose parent directory cannot be traversed. Also a typo in the path.

Common situations: Typo in filename; running fmt from the wrong working directory; path uses a tilde that was not expanded; broken symlink; permission to traverse a parent dir missing; case-sensitivity mismatch on case-insensitive filesystems.

Related errors

• Failed to read file
• Option -write cannot be used when reading from stdin
• Error getting pwd
• Failed to get absolute path of the configuration directory
• No '=' value in arg

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@d32a084675 (2026-08-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/34345b102b69418b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/command/fmt.go:132

func (c *FmtCommand) fmt(paths []string, stdin io.Reader, stdout io.Writer) tfdiags.Diagnostics {
	var diags tfdiags.Diagnostics

	if len(paths) == 0 { // Assuming stdin, then.
		if c.write {
			diags = diags.Append(fmt.Errorf("Option -write cannot be used when reading from stdin"))
			return diags
		}
		fileDiags := c.processFile("<stdin>", stdin, stdout, true)
		diags = diags.Append(fileDiags)
		return diags
	}

	for _, path := range paths {
		path = c.normalizePath(path)
		info, err := os.Stat(path)
		if err != nil {
			diags = diags.Append(fmt.Errorf("No file or directory at %s", path))
			return diags
		}
		if info.IsDir() {
			dirDiags := c.processDir(path, stdout)
			diags = diags.Append(dirDiags)
		} else {
			fmtd := false
			for _, ext := range fmtSupportedExts {
				if strings.HasSuffix(path, ext) {
					f, err := os.Open(path)
					if err != nil {
						// Open does not produce error messages that are end-user-appropriate,
						// so we'll need to simplify here.
						diags = diags.Append(fmt.Errorf("Failed to read file %s", path))
						continue
					}

					fileDiags := c.processFile(c.normalizePath(path), f, stdout, false)

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