What causes "Failed to fetch latest release: ${response.status} ${response.statusText}" in nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill?

Open the repo's Releases page and confirm a stable, published release exists (drafts and prereleases don't count for /latest).

nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill · error · GitHubDownloadError

Failed to fetch latest release: ${response.status} ${respons

Error message

Failed to fetch latest release: ${response.status} ${response.statusText}

What it means

Same guard pattern as fetchReleases() but for GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/latest — the call `uipro init` makes first. Any non-2xx, non-rate-limited response becomes GitHubDownloadError('Failed to fetch latest release: <status> <reason>'). Notably GitHub returns 404 for this endpoint when the repository has no published (non-draft, non-prerelease) release yet.

Source

Thrown at cli/src/utils/github.ts:88

  return response.json();
}

export async function getLatestRelease(token?: string): Promise<Release> {
  const url = `${API_BASE}/repos/${REPO_OWNER}/${REPO_NAME}/releases/latest`;

  const response = await fetch(url, {
    headers: {
      'Accept': 'application/vnd.github.v3+json',
      'User-Agent': USER_AGENT,
      ...getAuthHeaders(token),
    },
  });

  checkRateLimit(response);

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new GitHubDownloadError(`Failed to fetch latest release: ${response.status} ${response.statusText}`);
  }

  return response.json();
}

export async function downloadRelease(url: string, dest: string, token?: string): Promise<void> {
  const response = await fetch(url, {
    headers: {
      'User-Agent': USER_AGENT,
      'Accept': 'application/octet-stream',
      ...getAuthHeaders(token),
    },
  });

  checkRateLimit(response);

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new GitHubDownloadError(`Failed to download: ${response.status} ${response.statusText}`);

View on GitHub (pinned to a38d04c3d5)

Solutions

Open the repo's Releases page and confirm a stable, published release exists (drafts and prereleases don't count for /latest).
If 401, clear or rotate the stale UI_PRO_MAX_GITHUB_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN.
Publish or promote a release to stable, or fall back to fetchReleases() and pick the first entry when /latest 404s.
Check githubstatus.com for 5xx causes and retry.

Example fix

// before
const release = await getLatestRelease(token);
// after: fall back to the releases list when /latest 404s
let release;
try {
  release = await getLatestRelease(token);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof GitHubDownloadError && e.message.includes('404')) {
    const [first] = await fetchReleases(token);
    if (!first) throw new Error('No releases published yet');
    release = first;
  } else throw e;
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: fallback

Try / catch

import { getLatestRelease, fetchReleases, GitHubDownloadError } from './utils/github';

async function latestOrFirst(token?: string) {
  try {
    return await getLatestRelease(token);
  } catch (e) {
    if (e instanceof GitHubDownloadError && e.message.includes('404')) {
      const [first] = await fetchReleases(token);
      if (!first) throw new Error('Repository has no published releases');
      return first;
    }
    throw e;
  }
}

Prevention

On forks, publish a stable release before exercising install flows.
Treat /releases/latest 404 as 'no stable release yet', not as a hard failure.
Verify tokens with a simple curl before batch runs.

When it happens

Trigger: Freshly forked or bootstrapped repo where no release has been marked 'latest' (404); a repository where all releases are drafts or marked prerelease; 401 from an invalid token; 5xx during a GitHub outage.

Common situations: Running the CLI against a fork that never published a release; release accidentally left in draft/prerelease so /releases/latest 404s; invalid or expired token in the environment.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill@a38d04c3d5 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/611b8ebdb59b34a7. Report an issue: GitHub.