wavetermdev/waveterm · error

error expanding home dir: %w

Error message

error expanding home dir: %w

What it means

resolveFileQuery expands '~' in the caller-provided cwd via wavebase.ExpandHomeDir; if that expansion fails (typically HOME unset/unresolvable), the underlying error is wrapped with this message. It surfaces environment problems before any path resolution proceeds.

Source

Thrown at pkg/suggestion/suggestion.go:72

//
// Our approach is to use the presence of a trailing slash to decide whether
// to treat the query as a directory listing (searchTerm is empty) or a search
// filter. (This means that a query of exactly "." or ".." is treated as a
// search filter, so that files with a dot in their name––including ".."––will
// be returned.)
//
// In addition, if there is a slash anywhere in the query (but not at the end),
// we treat everything before the last slash as a relative directory to search
// in, and the portion after the last slash as the search term.
func resolveFileQuery(cwd string, query string) (string, string, string, error) {
	// If no current working directory, default to "~".
	if cwd == "" {
		cwd = "~"
	}
	var err error
	cwd, err = wavebase.ExpandHomeDir(cwd)
	if err != nil {
		return "", "", "", fmt.Errorf("error expanding home dir: %w", err)
	}
	if query == "" {
		return cwd, "", "", nil
	}
	// Expand home if needed.
	tildeSlash := "~" + PathSepStr
	if query == "~" || strings.HasPrefix(query, tildeSlash) {
		ogQuery := query
		query, err = wavebase.ExpandHomeDir(query)
		if err != nil {
			return "", "", "", fmt.Errorf("error expanding query home dir: %w", err)
		}
		if ogQuery == "~" || ogQuery == tildeSlash {
			return query, tildeSlash, "", nil
		}
	}
	// Handle absolute queries.
	if filepath.IsAbs(query) {

View on GitHub (pinned to a4447c1563)

Solutions

1. Ensure the HOME environment variable is set correctly for the wave process
2. Pass an explicit absolute cwd in FetchSuggestionsData.FileCwd instead of relying on '~'
3. Inspect the wrapped ExpandHomeDir error for the root cause (which os/user call failed)

Example fix

// before
data := wshrpc.FetchSuggestionsData{SuggestionType: "file", FileCwd: "~"}
// after
if os.Getenv("HOME") == "" {
    os.Setenv("HOME", "/home/user")
}
data := wshrpc.FetchSuggestionsData{SuggestionType: "file", FileCwd: "/home/user/work"}

if os.Getenv("HOME") == "" {
    return errors.New("HOME is not set; tilde cwd cannot be expanded")
}
if _, err := wavebase.ExpandHomeDir("~"); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("home expansion unavailable: %w", err)
}

func homeExpandable() bool { _, err := wavebase.ExpandHomeDir("~"); return err == nil }

cwd, err := wavebase.ExpandHomeDir(data.FileCwd)
if err != nil {
    home, hErr := os.UserHomeDir()
    if hErr != nil { return err }
    cwd = home
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling FetchSuggestions with SuggestionType "file" and a FileCwd requiring expansion while the process HOME environment variable is empty or invalid.

Common situations: Server/daemon contexts running without a HOME env var, containerized deployments missing the user environment, corrupted passwd entries for the current user.

Related errors

• error expanding query home dir: %w
• setting auth key: %v
• electron executable path not set
• failed to build secret environment (ERR-SECRET): %w
• env string too large (max %d bytes)

AI-assisted analysis of wavetermdev/waveterm@a4447c1563 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/210c10189d937609. Report an issue: GitHub.