What causes "no migration files found" in hasura/graphql-engine?

Create at least one migration first (`hasura migrate create`)

no migration files found

Error message

no migration files found

What it means

ErrNoMigrationFiles indicates that the migrations directory contains no migration files. It is returned early when an operation requires at least one migration but none were found.

Source

Thrown at cli/migrate/migrate.go:46

	log "github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
	"golang.org/x/term"
)

// DefaultPrefetchMigrations sets the number of migrations to pre-read
// from the source. This is helpful if the source is remote, but has little
// effect for a local source (i.e. file system).
// Please note that this setting has a major impact on the memory usage,
// since each pre-read migration is buffered in memory. See DefaultBufferSize.
var DefaultPrefetchMigrations = uint64(10)

// DefaultLockTimeout sets the max time a database driver has to acquire a lock.
var DefaultLockTimeout = 15 * time.Second

var (
	ErrNoChange         = errors.New("no change")
	ErrNilVersion       = errors.New("no migration")
	ErrLocked           = errors.New("database locked")
	ErrNoMigrationFiles = errors.New("no migration files found")
	ErrLockTimeout      = errors.New("timeout: can't acquire database lock")
	ErrApplied          = errors.New("Version already applied in database")
	ErrNotApplied       = errors.New("Migration not applied in database")
	ErrNoMigrationMode  = errors.New("Migration mode is disabled")
	ErrMigrationMode    = errors.New("Migration mode is enabled")
)

const (
	applyingMigrationsMessage = "Applying migrations"
)

func newProgressBar(str string, w io.Writer, pbLogs bool) *pb.ProgressBar { //nolint:unparam
	// Default behaviour in non-interactive mode
	if !pbLogs && !term.IsTerminal(int(os.Stdout.Fd())) {
		return nil
	}
	// bar template configuration
	str = fmt.Sprintf(`"%v: "`, str)

View on GitHub (pinned to 724551b9ae)

Solutions

Create at least one migration first (`hasura migrate create`)
Check the migrations directory path/config
Ensure you run the CLI from the Hasura project root

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

entries, _ := os.ReadDir(migrationsDir)
if len(entries) == 0 { return fmt.Errorf("no migrations; create one first") }

Prevention

Check migrations directory is non-empty before running squash/apply flows
Run CLI from the project root or pass --dir explicitly

When it happens

Trigger: Running apply/create-based flows (e.g. Squash, status) when the migrations directory is empty or the configured directory path is wrong.

Common situations: New project where no migrations were created yet, wrong --dir flag, running from a directory without a migrations/ folder.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hasura/graphql-engine@724551b9ae (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a13da5bc9995537b. Report an issue: GitHub.