invoke-ai/InvokeAI · error · RuntimeError

Can't start `--dev_reload` because jurigged is not found; `p

Error message

Can't start `--dev_reload` because jurigged is not found; `pip install -e ".[dev]"` to include development dependencies.

What it means

The --dev_reload hot-reload feature depends on the optional third-party package jurigged, which is only installed with the dev extras. enable_dev_reload() imports jurigged and converts a missing-module ImportError into a RuntimeError explaining how to install it.

Source

Thrown at invokeai/app/util/startup_utils.py:53


def invokeai_source_dir() -> Path:
    # `invokeai.__file__` doesn't always work for editable installs
    this_module_path = Path(__file__).resolve()
    # https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-38382/Unresolved-reference-spec-but-this-is-standard-builtin
    # noinspection PyUnresolvedReferences
    depth = len(__spec__.parent.split("."))
    return this_module_path.parents[depth - 1]


def enable_dev_reload(custom_nodes_path=None) -> None:
    """Enable hot reloading on python file changes during development."""
    from invokeai.backend.util.logging import InvokeAILogger

    try:
        import jurigged
    except ImportError as e:
        raise RuntimeError(
            'Can\'t start `--dev_reload` because jurigged is not found; `pip install -e ".[dev]"` to include development dependencies.'
        ) from e
    else:
        paths = [str(invokeai_source_dir() / "*.py")]
        if custom_nodes_path:
            paths.append(str(custom_nodes_path / "*.py"))
        jurigged.watch(pattern=paths, logger=InvokeAILogger.get_logger(name="jurigged").info)


def apply_monkeypatches() -> None:
    """Apply monkeypatches to fix issues with third-party libraries."""

    import invokeai.backend.util.hotfixes  # noqa: F401 (monkeypatching on import)


def register_mime_types() -> None:
    """Register additional mime types for windows."""
    # Fix for windows mimetypes registry entries being borked.

View on GitHub (pinned to 0b6a024f2f)

Solutions

Install dev dependencies: pip install -e ".[dev]" (includes jurigged)
Or install jurigged alone: pip install jurigged
Drop the --dev_reload flag if hot reloading is not needed
Confirm you are in the correct virtualenv before launching

Example fix

// before
$ invokeai --dev_reload  # RuntimeError: jurigged not found
// after
$ pip install -e ".[dev]"
$ invokeai --dev_reload

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

import importlib.util

def dev_reload_available():
    return importlib.util.find_spec('jurigged') is not None

Try / catch

try:
    enable_dev_reload(custom_nodes_path)
except RuntimeError as e:
    if 'jurigged is not found' in str(e):
        print('Hot reload unavailable; run: pip install -e ".[dev]"')
    else:
        raise

Prevention

Install dev extras in dev environments: pip install -e ".[dev]"
Gate --dev_reload behind an environment check for jurigged
Keep dev and production launch scripts separate

When it happens

Trigger: Launching invokeai with --dev_reload in an environment installed from PyPI or without dev dependencies, so `import jurigged` fails.

Common situations: Developers running a production install (pip install invokeai) and passing --dev_reload; fresh clones where `pip install -e ".[dev]"` was skipped; virtualenv not activated so dev extras missing.

Understand the failure class

Background: "X is not installed. Please install it with pip install Y": missing optional dependency errors — ImportError/ValueError raised when a library's optional extra was never installed — this error's family across 22 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of invoke-ai/InvokeAI@0b6a024f2f (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d5c542a002a481ff. Report an issue: GitHub.