hasura/graphql-engine · error

parsing server metadata as yaml: %w

Error message

parsing server metadata as yaml: %w

What it means

When converting server metadata to YAML during a YAML-mode diff fails, this is the wrapping message. It indicates the server's exported metadata could not be rendered as YAML for the comparison step.

Source

Thrown at cli/commands/metadata_handlers.go:441

		return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("expected 0 arguments, found: %v", o.Args))
	}

	serverMetadata, err := cli.GetCommonMetadataOps(o.EC).ExportMetadata()
	if err != nil {
		return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("exporting metadata from server: %w", err))
	}

	var serverMetadataBytes []byte

	serverMetadataBytes, err = io.ReadAll(serverMetadata)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("reading server metadata: %w", err))
	}

	if diffType == DifftypeYAML {
		serverMetadataBytes, err = metadatautil.JSONToYAML(serverMetadataBytes)
		if err != nil {
			return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("parsing server metadata as yaml: %w", err))
		}
	}

	localMetadataBytes, err := os.ReadFile(o.EC.MetadataFile)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("reading local metadata: %w", err))
	}

	if err := printMyersDiff(
		string(serverMetadataBytes),
		string(localMetadataBytes),
		"server",
		"project",
		o.Output,
		o.DisableColor,
	); err != nil {
		return errors.E(op, err)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 724551b9ae)

Solutions

1. Inspect server metadata with `metadata export -o json` to validate it
2. Upgrade CLI/server to matching versions
3. Repair server metadata state with `metadata inconsistency list` then `metadata reload` if corrupted
4. Retry once to exclude transient network truncation

if err := diff(o, DifftypeYAML); err != nil {
  if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "parsing server metadata") {
    return diff(o, DifftypeJSON)
  }
  return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: `metadata diff` (DifftypeYAML) where metadatautil.JSONToYAML(serverMetadataBytes) errors: server returned non-JSON or a structure failing YAML marshalling.

Common situations: Malformed server metadata (server-side inconsistency); truncated responses behind proxies; CLI/server version skew producing unfamiliar JSON structures.

Related errors

• reading server metadata: %w
• parsing metadata to yaml: %w
• parsing yaml metadata to json: %w
• reading local metadata: %w
• error getting actions file content: %w

AI-assisted analysis of hasura/graphql-engine@724551b9ae (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6f7ef3c71f91b5be. Report an issue: GitHub.