siyuan-note/siyuan · error

Cannot create a file starting with .

Error message

Cannot create a file starting with .

What it means

The very next guard in validateCreateDoc (kernel/model/file.go:2328): after the basename yields a valid tree ID, it must not start with '.' — dot-prefixed files are hidden/config files in the notebook directory (like .siyuan/), so creating a document named ".<something>.sy" is rejected with Conf.Language(13) ("Cannot create a file starting with .").

Solutions

1. Remove the leading dot from the filename: use "20240101120000-abcd123.sy" style names
2. Sanitize external filenames in import pipelines (strip leading dots before building the create path)
3. Keep hidden-file conventions out of data/<box>/ — the kernel reserves dot-entries for its own metadata

Example fix

// before
fetchPost('/api/filetree/createDocWithMd', {notebook, path: `/.${id}.sy`, markdown})

// after
fetchPost('/api/filetree/createDocWithMd', {notebook, path: `/${id}.sy`, markdown})

base := strings.TrimSpace(path.Base(p))
if strings.HasPrefix(base, ".") {
	return fmt.Errorf("document filename must not start with '.': %s", base)
}

func hasNoLeadingDot(p string) bool { return !strings.HasPrefix(strings.TrimSpace(path.Base(p)), ".") }

When it happens

Trigger: POST /api/filetree/createDoc / createDocWithMd with path whose filename component begins with a dot, e.g. "/.draft-20240101......sy" or "/parent/.20240101120000-abcd123.sy" (the ID passed the previous check but the leading dot fails this one).

Common situations: Unix-minded users naming files .draft.sy; sanitizers that prefix temp names with '.'; importers preserving dotfiles found in a source folder.

Related errors

• Duplicated filename
• Untitled
• 106
• 199
• block operation context

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@afa823b6b4 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dc9e6edd4755d3b9. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/model/file.go:2328

	if 512 < utf8.RuneCountInString(title) {
		// 限制笔记本名和文档名最大长度为 `512` https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan/issues/6299
		return nil, errors.New(Conf.Language(106))
	}

	isEmpty := false
	if "" == title {
		title = Conf.Language(16)
		isEmpty = true
	} else if titleEmpty {
		isEmpty = true
	}

	baseName := strings.TrimSpace(path.Base(p))
	if "" == util.GetTreeID(baseName) {
		return nil, errors.New(Conf.Language(16))
	}
	if strings.HasPrefix(baseName, ".") {
		return nil, errors.New(Conf.Language(13))
	}

	box, boxErr := getOpenedBox(boxID)
	if nil != boxErr {
		return nil, boxErr
	}

	folder := path.Dir(p)
	hPath := "/" + title
	if "/" != folder {
		parentID := path.Base(folder)
		parentTree, loadErr := LoadTreeByBlockID(parentID)
		if nil != loadErr {
			logging.LogErrorf("get parent tree [%s] failed", parentID)
			return nil, ErrBlockNotFound
		}
		parentPath := strings.TrimSuffix(parentTree.Path, ".sy")
		if parentTree.Box != boxID || cleanBoxDocDir(parentPath) != cleanBoxDocDir(folder) {

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