siyuan-note/siyuan · error

--label is required

Error message

--label is required

What it means

The `bookmark remove` CLI command requires the --label flag identifying which bookmark to delete. When the flag is missing or empty, RunE returns this error (kernel/cli/cmd/bookmark.go:78) before calling model.RemoveBookmark.

Solutions

1. Pass the exact bookmark label: --label "MyBookmark"
2. List existing bookmarks first (bookmark list) to get the exact label, including case and whitespace
3. Check flag spelling (--label, not --name or --bookmark)

Example fix

// before
siyuan bookmark remove
// after
siyuan bookmark remove --label "TODO"

if [ -z "$LABEL" ]; then echo "--label is required" >&2; exit 1; fi
siyuan bookmark remove --label "$LABEL"

When it happens

Trigger: Running `siyuan bookmark remove` without --label, with `--label ""`, or with a misspelled flag so GetString returns the empty default.

Common situations: Interactive shell line-editing dropping the flag; scripts where the bookmark label variable is empty; assuming the label is a positional argument.

Understand the failure class

Background: "--flag is required" and "must specify" CLI errors: how missing-required-flag validation works and how to fix it — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• --new is required
• --old is required
• --av and --ids are required
• --av, --key, --item and --value are required
• --block is required for non-detached rows

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/89a6d4680c6de3b5. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/cli/cmd/bookmark.go:78

		default:
			w := tabwriter.NewWriter(os.Stdout, 0, 0, 2, ' ', 0)
			fmt.Fprintln(w, "LABEL")
			for _, l := range labels {
				fmt.Fprintln(w, l)
			}
			w.Flush()
		}
		return nil
	},
}

var bookmarkRemoveCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "remove --label <label>",
	Short: "Remove a bookmark",
	RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
		label, _ := cmd.Flags().GetString("label")
		if label == "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("--label is required")
		}

		if dryRun {
			fmt.Printf("[dry-run] Would remove bookmark \"%s\"\n", label)
			return nil
		}

		if err := model.RemoveBookmark(label); err != nil {
			return err
		}
		model.AppendPushReloadFiletreeEntry()
		return nil
	},
}

var bookmarkRenameCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "rename --old <old> --new <new>",
	Short: "Rename a bookmark",

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