What causes "No valid semantic version tag found" in vectordotdev/vector?

Fetch all tags: `git fetch --tags --force`, or re-clone without `--depth 1`

No valid semantic version tag found

Error message

No valid semantic version tag found

What it means

latest_release_version lists git tags sorted by version (ignoring `vdev-v…` tags) and parses the first tag matching `^vX.Y.Z$` into a semver Version. If the repository has no release-style tag at all, it bails with "No valid semantic version tag found". The tool depends on release tags existing to compute the latest release.

Solutions

Fetch all tags: `git fetch --tags --force`, or re-clone without `--depth 1`
Verify a tag like `v0.45.0` exists with `git tag --list 'v*'`; create/push one if this repo should have releases
Run the command from the actual vector repository checkout rather than an empty/forked repo

Example fix

// before (fresh shallow clone, no tags)
let v = latest_release_version()?; // Err: No valid semantic version tag found
// after
git fetch --tags --force
let v = latest_release_version()?; // Ok(0.45.0)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

let has_tags = std::process::Command::new("git")
    .args(["tag", "--list", "v[0-9]*.[0-9]*.[0-9]*"])
    .output()?.stdout.iter().filter(|b| **b == b'\n').count() > 0;
if !has_tags { panic!("no vX.Y.Z tags; run git fetch --tags first"); }

Prevention

Clone with full history (avoid --depth 1) and run `git fetch --tags --force`
Check `git tag --list 'v*'` before running release-dependent tooling
In CI, explicitly fetch tags on the checkout step

When it happens

Trigger: Calling latest_release_version in a repo (often a fresh clone or fork) whose refs contain no tags matching `v<major>.<minor>.<patch>` — or where all tags are `vdev-v…` internal tags or non-semver names.

Common situations: Shallow clones (`git clone --depth 1`) or forks that omit tags; running the release/deprecation tooling in a brand-new repo before the first release; tags fetched but not local (no `git fetch --tags`).

Understand the failure class

Background: EmptyResultError / "no results found": when an API or scraper succeeds but returns zero rows — this error's family across 9 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of vectordotdev/vector@bdb87aeaa4 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/25ccae0402ef4d17. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at vdev/src/utils/git.rs:152

        .check_output()
}

/// Returns the latest semver release tag (e.g. `0.55.0`), ignoring `vdev-v…` tags.
pub fn latest_release_version() -> Result<semver::Version> {
    let output = Command::new("git")
        .args(["tag", "--list", "--sort=-v:refname"])
        .check_output()?;
    let re = regex::Regex::new(r"^v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$").unwrap();
    for tag in output.lines() {
        if tag.starts_with("vdev-v") {
            continue;
        }
        if re.is_match(tag) {
            return semver::Version::parse(tag.trim_start_matches('v'))
                .context("Failed to parse version from tag");
        }
    }
    anyhow::bail!("No valid semantic version tag found")
}

/// Removes a file from the index (and working tree) using `git rm`.
pub fn rm(path: &str) -> Result<String> {
    Command::new("git").args(["rm", path]).check_output()
}

/// Pushes changes from the current repo
pub fn push() -> Result<String> {
    Command::new("git").args(["push"]).check_output()
}

pub fn push_and_set_upstream(branch_name: &str) -> Result<String> {
    Command::new("git")
        .args(["push", "-u", "origin", branch_name])
        .check_output()
}

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