junegunn/fzf · error

invalid border style (expected: rounded|sharp|bold|block|thi

Error message

invalid border style (expected: rounded|sharp|bold|block|thinblock|double|dashed|horizontal|vertical|top|bottom|left|right|line|inline|none)

What it means

parseBorder validates --border / --border-label-*= values against the full tui.BorderShape set (rounded, sharp, bold, block, thinblock, double, dashed, horizontal, vertical, top, bottom, left, right, line, inline, none). An unknown word — or a valid word with different casing/whitespace — yields this error listing all accepted values. An empty string is only tolerated when optional=true (option omitted).

Source

Thrown at src/options.go:1001

	case "horizontal":
		return tui.BorderHorizontal, nil
	case "vertical":
		return tui.BorderVertical, nil
	case "top":
		return tui.BorderTop, nil
	case "bottom":
		return tui.BorderBottom, nil
	case "left":
		return tui.BorderLeft, nil
	case "right":
		return tui.BorderRight, nil
	case "none":
		return tui.BorderNone, nil
	}
	if optional && str == "" {
		return defaultBorderShape, nil
	}
	return tui.BorderNone, errors.New("invalid border style (expected: rounded|sharp|bold|block|thinblock|double|dashed|horizontal|vertical|top|bottom|left|right|line|inline|none)")
}

func parseKeyChords(str string, message string) (map[tui.Event]string, []tui.Event, error) {
	if len(str) == 0 {
		return nil, nil, errors.New(message)
	}

	list := []tui.Event{}
	str = regexp.MustCompile("(?i)(alt-),").ReplaceAllString(str, "$1"+string([]rune{escapedComma}))
	tokens := strings.Split(str, ",")
	if str == "," || strings.HasPrefix(str, ",,") || strings.HasSuffix(str, ",,") || strings.Contains(str, ",,,") {
		tokens = append(tokens, ",")
	}

	chords := make(map[tui.Event]string)
	for _, key := range tokens {
		if len(key) == 0 {
			continue // ignore

View on GitHub (pinned to bd4efa277b)

Solutions

1. Pick one of the enumerated values exactly as listed, lowercase: --border rounded
2. Use --border (no value) for the default rounded border
3. Run fzf --help | grep -A2 border to see values your version supports
4. Upgrade fzf (>=0.48) if you need block/thinblock/dashed/double

Example fix

# before
fzf --border=curved
# after
fzf --border=rounded

BORDER='rounded'
case "$BORDER" in rounded|sharp|bold|block|thinblock|double|dashed|horizontal|vertical|top|bottom|left|right|line|inline|none) ;; *) echo "invalid border: $BORDER" >&2; exit 1;; esac
fzf --border="$BORDER"

isValidFzfBorder() { case "$1" in rounded|sharp|bold|block|thinblock|double|dashed|horizontal|vertical|top|bottom|left|right|line|inline|none) return 0;; *) return 1;; esac; }

When it happens

Trigger: fzf --border curved (old/invalid name), --border=ROUND (case-sensitive match), --border ' rounded' (leading space), or --border=double on an fzf build where the richer shapes were not yet supported.

Common situations: Dotfiles written for fzf <0.36 that used 'border-sharp'/'border-rounded' style flags then migrated; typos; borders copied from other TUI tools' vocabularies.

Related errors

• not a valid number: ${str}
• invalid format: ${str}
• template should include at least 1 placeholder: ${str}
• invalid algorithm (expected: v1 or v2)
• unsupported key: ${key}

AI-assisted analysis of junegunn/fzf@bd4efa277b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e28731a5c09e9c50. Report an issue: GitHub.