starship/starship · error

Failed to load starship config

Error message

Failed to load starship config

What it means

This panic comes from get_configuration_edit() in src/configure.rs. It reads the file at STARSHIP_CONFIG (or ~/.config/starship.toml), falls back to an empty string when the file is missing, and then calls toml_edit's DocumentMut::parse. parse() returns Err when the file content is not valid TOML (duplicate keys, unclosed strings/brackets, bare values, wrong types), and .expect() turns that Err into a process abort with the message 'Failed to load starship config'.

Source

Thrown at src/configure.rs:238

    values.insert(key, new_value);
    Ok(())
}

pub fn get_configuration(context: &Context) -> toml::Table {
    let starship_config = StarshipConfig::initialize(context.get_config_path_os().as_deref());

    starship_config.config.unwrap_or_default()
}

pub fn get_configuration_edit(context: &Context) -> DocumentMut {
    let config_file_path = context.get_config_path_os();
    let toml_content = StarshipConfig::read_config_content_as_str(config_file_path.as_deref());

    toml_content
        .unwrap_or_default()
        .parse::<DocumentMut>()
        .expect("Failed to load starship config")
}

pub fn write_configuration(context: &Context, doc: &DocumentMut) {
    let Some(config_path) = context.get_config_path_os() else {
        eprintln!("config path required to write configuration");
        process::exit(1);
    };

    let config_path = PathBuf::from(config_path);

    if let Err(e) = crate::utils::write_file_atomic(config_path, doc.to_string(), true) {
        eprintln!("Unable to write configuration: {e}");
        process::exit(1);
    }
}

pub fn edit_configuration(
    context: &Context,

View on GitHub (pinned to c13a634f39)

Solutions

1. Validate the file with an external TOML linter or `tomlcheck starship.toml` and fix the reported line
2. Run `starship print-config` - if it also fails, the TOML is broken and the error output identifies the offset
3. Temporarily move the file aside (`mv ~/.config/starship.toml ~/.config/starship.toml.bak`) to confirm it is the source, then restore pieces gradually
4. Regenerate a known-good base with `starship preset plain-text-symbols > ~/.config/starship.toml` (or toml) and re-apply your changes in small batches

Example fix

// before (src/configure.rs)
toml_content
    .unwrap_or_default()
    .parse::<DocumentMut>()
    .expect("Failed to load starship config")

// after
match toml_content.unwrap_or_default().parse::<DocumentMut>() {
    Ok(doc) => doc,
    Err(e) => {
        eprintln!("Failed to parse starship config: {e}");
        process::exit(1);
    }
}

# before launching the editor / calling starship config
if [ -f "$STARSHIP_CONFIG" ] || [ -f "$HOME/.config/starship.toml" ]; then
  CFG="${STARSHIP_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/starship.toml}"
  # fast TOML syntax check using python (available almost everywhere)
  python3 - "$CFG" <<'EOF' || exit 1
import sys, tomllib
try:
    tomllib.load(open(sys.argv[1], 'rb'))
except Exception as e:
    sys.exit(f'starship.toml is invalid: {e}')
EOF
fi

// Rust callers: guard before get_configuration_edit
fn config_is_valid_toml(path: &std::path::Path) -> bool {
    std::fs::read_to_string(path)
        .map(|s| s.parse::<toml_edit::DocumentMut>().is_ok())
        .unwrap_or(true) // missing file behaves as empty (parses fine)
}

// Embedding starship: isolate the panic at the boundary
let doc = std::panic::catch_unwind(|| {
    starship::configure::get_configuration_edit(&context)
});
match doc {
    Ok(d) => { /* edit d */ },
    Err(_) => eprintln!("starship.toml has invalid TOML; fix syntax before editing"),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `starship config` (or any code path that calls get_configuration_edit) while the config file exists but contains a TOML syntax error. A missing file does NOT trigger it (unwrap_or_default yields an empty string, which parses fine) - only malformed TOML content does.

Common situations: Hand-editing starship.toml and leaving an unterminated quote or trailing comma; pasting a preset that got truncated; using single quotes instead of TOML-style strings; a plugin or editor writing partial content; tabs/copy-paste introducing smart quotes; a failed atomic write leaving a partial file.

Related errors

• Unexpected error returned in root format variables
• can't init_main
• can't init_stub
• Failed to initialize worker thread pool
• Unable to determine HOME_DIR for user

AI-assisted analysis of starship/starship@c13a634f39 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3d7c725c4e53214b. Report an issue: GitHub.