lima-vm/lima · error

configuration is nil

Error message

configuration is nil

What it means

QEMU driver Validate()/fillConfig() call validateConfig() with the instance's LimaYAML config. If the *limatype.LimaYAML pointer is nil, there is nothing to validate, so it returns this sentinel error immediately. It is an internal invariant check rather than a user-config problem.

Source

Thrown at pkg/driver/qemu/qemu_driver.go:100

	l.Instance = inst
	l.SSHLocalPort = inst.SSHLocalPort

	return &driver.ConfiguredDriver{
		Driver: l,
	}, nil
}

func (l *LimaQemuDriver) Validate(ctx context.Context) error {
	if err := validateArch(ctx, l.Instance.Config); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return validateConfig(l.Instance.Config)
}

func validateConfig(cfg *limatype.LimaYAML) error {
	if cfg == nil {
		return errors.New("configuration is nil")
	}
	if err := validateMountType(cfg); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	for i, nw := range cfg.Networks {
		if unknown := reflectutil.UnknownNonEmptyFields(nw,
			"Lima",
			"Socket",
			"MACAddress",
			"Metric",
			"Interface",
		); len(unknown) > 0 {
			logrus.Warnf("vmType %s: ignoring networks[%d]: %+v", *cfg.VMType, i, unknown)
		}
	}

	var qemuOpts limatype.QEMUOpts

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Ensure the Instance is created/loaded through the normal limactl flow so Config is populated before Validate().
2. If constructing programmatically, load the YAML via the limayaml loader and assign it to Instance.Config first.
3. Treat this as a bug in your calling code — the driver never expects a nil config in production.

Example fix

// before
inst := &limatype.Instance{}
drv.Validate(ctx)
// after
inst.Config = loadedLimaYAML // from limayaml.LoadYAML

if inst == nil || inst.Config == nil {
    return errors.New("instance config not loaded; load via limayaml before driver.Validate()")
}

func hasConfig(inst *limatype.Instance) bool { return inst != nil && inst.Config != nil }

if err := drv.Validate(ctx); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "configuration is nil") {
    // load the instance config before retrying; this indicates a caller bug
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling driver.Validate() or fillConfig() on a QEMU driver whose `l.Instance.Config` is nil — i.e. an Instance that was never loaded/initialized from a lima.yaml file.

Common situations: Programmatic use of the driver package with a hand-built Instance struct; reading an instance whose config file failed to load earlier; tests constructing drivers without config.

Related errors

• configuration is nil
• field `vmOpts.qemu.minimumVersion` must be a semvar value, g
• mount type %#q is explicitly unsupported
• field `mountType` must be one of %v for QEMU driver on Linux
• field `mountType` must be %#q or %#q for QEMU driver on macO

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e67e61d0be534953. Report an issue: GitHub.