wtfutil/wtf · error

%s

Error message

%s

What it means

Buildkite's recentBuilds returns the raw HTTP status line (resp.Status, e.g. '401 Unauthorized') as the error whenever the Buildkite API responds outside 2xx. It is a pass-through of the API's status, so the message text is exactly what the server returned.

Source

Thrown at modules/buildkite/client.go:63

	req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", url, http.NoBody)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	req.Header.Add("Authorization", fmt.Sprintf("Bearer %s", widget.settings.apiKey))

	httpClient := &http.Client{Transport: &http.Transport{
		Proxy: http.ProxyFromEnvironment,
	}}

	resp, err := httpClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	defer func() { _ = resp.Body.Close() }()

	if resp.StatusCode < 200 || resp.StatusCode > 299 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("%s", resp.Status)
	}

	builds := []Build{}
	err = utils.ParseJSON(&builds, resp.Body)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return builds, nil
}

func branchesQuery(branches []string) string {
	if len(branches) == 0 {
		return ""
	}

	if len(branches) == 1 {
		return fmt.Sprintf("?branch=%s", branches[0])

View on GitHub (pinned to bb838c1ccb)

Solutions

1. Read the status in the error message and fix the matching cause (401 → token, 404 → slug)
2. Set/refresh the Buildkite API token with read access to the org and pipelines
3. Verify organization and pipeline slugs in the widget configuration
4. Retry with backoff on 429/5xx; check the Buildkite status page

Example fix

// before
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer " + os.Getenv("BUILDKITE_TOKEN")) // unset → 401 Unauthorized
// after
tok := os.Getenv("BUILDKITE_TOKEN")
if tok == "" {
    return nil, errors.New("BUILDKITE_TOKEN is not set")
}
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer " + tok)

if os.Getenv("BUILDKITE_TOKEN") == "" {
    return errors.New("BUILDKITE_TOKEN must be set")
}

builds, err := client.recentBuilds()
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "429") || strings.Contains(err.Error(), "50") {
        // transient: retry with backoff
    } else if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "401") {
        // fix API token
    }
    return nil, err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any Buildkite REST call in recentBuilds that returns status <200 or >299 — 401 (bad/missing API token), 404 (unknown slug/org), 422 (bad query params), 429/5xx from rate limits or outages.

Common situations: Expired or revoked BUILDKITE_TOKEN; wrong organization/pipeline slug in settings; hitting Buildkite rate limits; intermittent Buildkite 5xx incidents.

Related errors

• errors.New(msg.Msg)
• errors.New(hibpErr.Message)
• %s
• unexpected status %d from DEV.to API
• unexpected status code %d from football API

AI-assisted analysis of wtfutil/wtf@bb838c1ccb (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2f4b1eceb92af47c. Report an issue: GitHub.