No flow.toml found in current directory or global config

Error message

No flow.toml found in current directory or global config

What it means

proxy_command needs a flow.toml configuration to know what to proxy; it looks in the current directory first and falls back to the global config (~/.config/flow/flow.toml). When neither exists it bails with this message, because proxy actions cannot proceed without configuration.

Source

Thrown at src/main.rs:1036

}

/// Handle proxy commands
fn proxy_command(cmd: ProxyCommand) -> Result<()> {
    // Helper to load config from current directory
    let load_project_config = || -> Result<flowd::config::Config> {
        let cwd = std::env::current_dir()?;
        let flow_toml = cwd.join("flow.toml");
        if flow_toml.exists() {
            flowd::config::load(&flow_toml)
        } else {
            // Try global config
            let global = dirs::config_dir()
                .map(|d| d.join("flow").join("flow.toml"))
                .filter(|p| p.exists());
            if let Some(path) = global {
                flowd::config::load(&path)
            } else {
                bail!("No flow.toml found in current directory or global config");
            }
        }
    };

    match cmd.action {
        ProxyAction::Start(opts) => {
            // Load config
            let config = load_project_config()?;
            let proxy_config = config.proxy.unwrap_or_default();
            let targets = config.proxies;

            if targets.is_empty() {
                bail!("No proxy targets configured. Add [[proxies]] to flow.toml");
            }

            // Override listen if provided
            let proxy_config = if let Some(listen) = opts.listen {
                proxy::ProxyConfig {

View on GitHub (pinned to a747e741ae)

Solutions

cd into the project directory that contains flow.toml before running the proxy command.
Create the global config at ~/.config/flow/flow.toml (Linux) or the platform equivalent of dirs::config_dir()/flow/flow.toml.
Create a flow.toml in the current directory with the required proxy settings.
Verify with `ls flow.toml` / `ls "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/flow/flow.toml"` which path is expected.

Example fix

# before
cd /tmp && flow proxy start   # no flow.toml here
# after
cd ~/projects/myapp           # contains flow.toml
flow proxy start
# or create a global one:
mkdir -p ~/.config/flow && printf '[proxy]\nport = 8080\n' > ~/.config/flow/flow.toml

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

use std::path::PathBuf;
fn flow_config_present() -> bool {
    PathBuf::from("flow.toml").exists()
        || dirs::config_dir().map(|d| d.join("flow").join("flow.toml").exists()).unwrap_or(false)
}
if !flow_config_present() {
    eprintln!("create flow.toml in the project dir or ~/.config/flow/flow.toml");
    std::process::exit(1);
}

Type guard

fn resolve_flow_config() -> Option<PathBuf> {
    let local = PathBuf::from("flow.toml");
    if local.exists() { return Some(local); }
    dirs::config_dir().map(|d| d.join("flow").join("flow.toml")).filter(|p| p.exists())
}

Try / catch

match proxy_command(args) {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("No flow.toml found") => {
        eprintln!("Run from a project dir containing flow.toml, or create ~/.config/flow/flow.toml");
        std::process::exit(1);
    }
    other => other?,
}

Prevention

Run proxy commands from the project root containing flow.toml.
Create the global config once after install: ~/.config/flow/flow.toml.
Check for the config file in scripts before invoking proxy actions.
Keep the filename exactly `flow.toml` — alternate names are not discovered.

When it happens

Trigger: Running a proxy subcommand (ProxyAction::Start etc.) outside any directory containing flow.toml while no global config file exists at the platform config dir (dirs::config_dir()/flow/flow.toml).

Common situations: Running the proxy from $HOME or a temp dir instead of the project root; fresh install where the global config was never created; config file named differently or placed in a nonstandard location.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Config file not found": what it means and how to fix it in docker-sync, Maven, Vagrant, Turborepo and other tools — this error's family across 60 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nikivdev/code@a747e741ae (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/56a3da2f343bdc54. Report an issue: GitHub.