hasura/graphql-engine · error

error walking the directory path: %w

Error message

error walking the directory path: %w

What it means

When no explicit seed files are given, ApplySeedsToDatabase walks the entire seeds directory with afero.Walk; this error wraps any failure of that walk itself (not per-file read errors, which are reported separately). Typical causes are the seeds directory not existing or being unreadable.

Source

Thrown at cli/seed/apply.go:93

	} else {
		err := afero.Walk(fs, seedsDirectory, func(path string, file os.FileInfo, err error) error {
			if file == nil || err != nil {
				return errors.E(op, err)
			}

			if err := hasAllowedSeedFileExtensions(file.Name()); err == nil && !file.IsDir() {
				b, err := afero.ReadFile(fs, path)
				if err != nil {
					return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("error opening file: %w", err))
				}

				sqlAsBytes = append(sqlAsBytes, b)
			}

			return nil
		})
		if err != nil {
			return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("error walking the directory path: %w", err))
		}
	}

	var args []hasura.RequestBody

	sourceKind := getSourceKind(source)
	switch sourceKind {
	case hasura.SourceKindPG:
		for _, sql := range sqlAsBytes {
			request := hasura.RequestBody{
				Type: "run_sql",
				Args: hasura.PGRunSQLInput{
					SQL:    string(sql),
					Source: source.Name,
				},
			}
			args = append(args, request)
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 724551b9ae)

Solutions

1. Confirm the seeds directory exists and is a directory: ls -ld <project>/seeds; create it with mkdir seeds if missing.
2. Fix directory permissions: chmod +rx on seeds/ and all subdirectories (find seeds -type d -exec chmod +rx {} +).
3. Check the config for a custom seeds_directory setting pointing at the wrong path.
4. Remove non-directory entries named 'seeds' and recreate the folder.

Example fix

# before
$ hasura seed apply
error walking the directory path: open ./seeds: no such file or directory

# after
$ mkdir -p seeds && echo 'CREATE TABLE t(id int);' > seeds/0-init.sql
$ hasura seed apply

fi, err := os.Stat(seedsDirectory)
if err != nil { /* create it or fix config */ }
if !fi.IsDir() { return fmt.Errorf("%s is not a directory", seedsDirectory) }
// ensure subdirs are listable
filepath.WalkDir(seedsDirectory, func(p string, d fs.DirEntry, err error) error {
    if err != nil { return err }
    return nil
})

func isReadableDir(path string) bool {
    fi, err := os.Stat(path)
    return err == nil && fi.IsDir() && fi.Mode().Perm()&0o500 == 0o500
}

if err := ApplySeedsToDatabase(...); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "error walking the directory path") {
    if errors.Is(err, fs.ErrNotExist) { os.MkdirAll(seedsDir, 0o755) /* retry */ }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `hasura seed apply` (directory mode) when seedsDirectory does not exist, is a regular file instead of a directory, or a subdirectory inside it cannot be listed due to missing execute/read permission.

Common situations: The seeds/ folder was never created or was renamed (e.g. to database/seed/); directory permissions were tightened after copying the project; or a nested directory in seeds/ is owned by root from a Docker run.

Related errors

• getting list of seed files to move: %w
• error opening file: %w
• creating metadata file %s failed: %w
• getting list of migrations to move: %w
• creating target seeds directory: %w

AI-assisted analysis of hasura/graphql-engine@724551b9ae (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/05ea4f954e1317bf. Report an issue: GitHub.