vercel/turborepo · error · DownloadError

isErrorLike(reason) ? reason.message : String(reason)

Error message

isErrorLike(reason) ? reason.message : String(reason)

What it means

createProject() in @turbo/utils (the create-turbo project creation flow) wraps its entire download-and-extract phase in try/catch and rethrows any failure as a DownloadError, setting the message from the original error via isErrorLike(). It is a wrapper error: the message can be a network failure text, an HTTP status, 'Invalid example name: ...', or a tar extraction error.

Source

Thrown at packages/turbo-utils/src/create-project.ts:214

      } catch {
        // ignore
      }

      if (packageJsonContent) {
        // read the scripts from the package.json
        availableScripts.push(...Object.keys(packageJsonContent.scripts || {}));
      }
    }

    let cdPath: string = appPath;
    if (path.join(originalDirectory, appName) === appPath) {
      cdPath = appName;
    }

    return { cdPath, hasPackageJson, availableScripts, repoInfo };
  } catch (reason) {
    loader.stop();
    throw new DownloadError(
      isErrorLike(reason) ? reason.message : String(reason)
    );
  }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 9f94a7d215)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped message — it names the real failure; fix that root cause first (connectivity, example/repo name)
2. Verify the example name matches a directory under github.com/vercel/turborepo/examples, or that the repo shorthand owner/repo and branch are correct
3. If behind a proxy, configure HTTPS_PROXY/git proxy settings or download the example manually
4. Retry once after fixing connectivity; note createProject already retries downloads 3 times, so persistent failures are not transient

import { DownloadError } from "@turbo/utils/create-project";

function isDownloadError(e: unknown): e is DownloadError {
  return e instanceof DownloadError; // class is `export class DownloadError extends Error {}`
}

import { retry } from "@turbo/utils";

try {
  await retry(() => createProject({ ... }), { retries: 3 });
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof DownloadError) {
    // inspect e.message — it carries the underlying failure text
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any exception during the download phase: downloadAndExtractExample/downloadAndExtractRepo failing (offline, proxy blocking codeload.github.com or github.com, 404 for a bad example/repo), an invalid example name, abort due to download timeout, or tar extraction/write errors.

Common situations: Corporate proxy or VPN blocking GitHub downloads; typo in the example name or repo shorthand (owner/repo#branch); flaky networks in CI; disk full during extraction.

Related errors

• Unable to write .gitignore
• Unable to read package.json
• Unable to write package.json
• Unable to update README.md
• Failed to download: ${response.status}

AI-assisted analysis of vercel/turborepo@9f94a7d215 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7764cdb96b993382. Report an issue: GitHub.