hasura/graphql-engine · error

up migration with SQL string could not be created: %w

Error message

up migration with SQL string could not be created: %w

What it means

With --up (SQL string flag), migrate create calls createOptions.SetSQLUp(o.upSQL). This wraps failures validating/storing the provided SQL string, most commonly an empty string.

Source

Thrown at cli/commands/migrate_create.go:265

			return 0, herrors.E(op, fmt.Errorf("cannot fetch schema dump: %w", err))
		}

		err = createOptions.SetSQLUp(string(data))
		if err != nil {
			return 0, herrors.E(
				op,
				fmt.Errorf("while writing data from server into the up.sql file: %w", err),
			)
		}
	}

	// create pure sql based migrations here
	if o.upSQLChanged {
		err = createOptions.SetSQLUp(o.upSQL)
		if err != nil {
			return 0, herrors.E(
				op,
				fmt.Errorf("up migration with SQL string could not be created: %w", err),
			)
		}
	}

	if o.downSQLChanged {
		err = createOptions.SetSQLDown(o.downSQL)
		if err != nil {
			return 0, herrors.E(
				op,
				fmt.Errorf("down migration with SQL string could not be created: %w", err),
			)
		}
	}

	if o.sqlFile == "" && !o.sqlServer && o.EC.Config.Version != cli.V1 {
		// Set empty data for [up|down].sql
		if !o.upSQLChanged {
			createOptions.SQLUp = []byte(``)

View on GitHub (pinned to 724551b9ae)

Solutions

1. Echo the variable before running to confirm non-empty SQL is passed
2. Quote the SQL argument properly (single quotes for SQL with double quotes)
3. Provide both --up and --down if generating reversible migrations

Example fix

# before
hasura migrate create add-col --up "$SQL"   # SQL unset
# after
SQL='ALTER TABLE users ADD COLUMN email text;'
hasura migrate create add-col --up "$SQL"

[ -n "$(echo "$UP_SQL" | tr -d '[:space:]')" ] || { echo 'empty --up'; exit 1; }

When it happens

Trigger: `hasura migrate create X --up ""` or --up set to whitespace-only SQL; also flag parsing edge cases where the value didn't reach the option.

Common situations: Shell quoting bugs passing an empty variable: --up "$SQL" with SQL unset.

Related errors

• down migration with SQL string could not be created: %w
• expected 0 arguments, found: %v
• error validating flags: %w
• not a valid input for steps/version: %w
• cannot create migrate instance: %w

AI-assisted analysis of hasura/graphql-engine@724551b9ae (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/79dcb7ac00e19758. Report an issue: GitHub.