nikivdev/code · error

beads create failed: {}

Error message

beads create failed: {}

What it means

Thrown when an invocation of the external `beads create` command exits non-zero. The error message embeds whichever of stderr or stdout is non-empty, so the text of this error is the tool's own diagnostic output. It surfaces external CLI failures as anyhow errors in this library's flow.

Source

Thrown at src/commit.rs:13528

        .arg("--no-auto-import")
        .env("BEADS_DIR", beads_dir)
        .output()
        .context("run br create")?;

    if output.status.success() {
        return Ok(true);
    }
    if br_create_failed_due_to_duplicate_external_ref(&output) {
        return Ok(false);
    }
    let stderr = String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stderr);
    let stdout = String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stdout);
    let msg = if stderr.trim().is_empty() {
        stdout.trim()
    } else {
        stderr.trim()
    };
    bail!("beads create failed: {}", msg);
}

fn infer_review_bead_priority(issue: &str) -> u8 {
    let lower = issue.to_lowercase();
    if lower.contains("secret")
        || lower.contains("credential")
        || lower.contains("api key")
        || lower.contains("injection")
        || lower.contains("vulnerability")
    {
        return 0; // critical
    }
    if lower.contains("crash")
        || lower.contains("data loss")
        || lower.contains("race condition")
        || lower.contains("buffer overflow")
    {
        return 1; // high

View on GitHub (pinned to a747e741ae)

Solutions

1. Read the embedded message — it contains beads' own stderr/stdout diagnostics
2. Run the same `beads create ...` command manually to reproduce and see full output
3. Check `beads --version` and that the binary is installed and on PATH
4. Verify arguments (quoting of issue titles with spaces/special chars) and that beads is initialized in this repo

// verify beads is available before calling create
if which::which("beads").is_err() {
    eprintln!("beads CLI not found on PATH");
    std::process::exit(1);
}

match beads_create(&issue) {
    Err(e) => {
        eprintln!("beads create failed: {e:#}");
        eprintln!("Check beads is installed, initialized, and the issue text is valid.");
    }
    Ok(_) => {}
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `beads create <issue>` via Command when the beads CLI exits with a failure status — e.g. invalid arguments, beads not installed, or beads reporting a data/database problem on stderr.

Common situations: beads binary missing or an old version on PATH, malformed issue title arguments (unescaped quotes/spaces), corrupted beads database, or running outside a directory beads is initialized in.

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AI-assisted analysis of nikivdev/code@a747e741ae (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/349c127d631225dc. Report an issue: GitHub.