yamadashy/repomix · error

Failed to create temporary directory: ${message}

Error message

Failed to create temporary directory: ${message}

What it means

createToolWorkspace creates a per-invocation temp directory under the repomix tmp dir (getRepomixTmpDir()/mcp-outputs) using fs.mkdtemp. When any filesystem step fails (mkdir or mkdtemp), the error is rethrown with this message plus the OS-level cause text.

Source

Thrown at src/mcp/tools/mcpToolRuntime.ts:152

  description?: string;
  errorMessage?: string;
}

// Structured content for MCP tool responses with proper typing
type McpToolStructuredContent = (BaseMcpToolResponse & Record<string, unknown>) | undefined;

/**
 * Creates a temporary directory for MCP tool operations
 */
export const createToolWorkspace = async (): Promise<string> => {
  try {
    const tmpBaseDir = path.join(getRepomixTmpDir(), 'mcp-outputs');
    await fs.mkdir(tmpBaseDir, { recursive: true });
    const tempDir = await fs.mkdtemp(`${tmpBaseDir}/`);
    return tempDir;
  } catch (error) {
    const message = error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error);
    throw new Error(`Failed to create temporary directory: ${message}`);
  }
};

/**
 * Generate a unique output ID
 */
export const generateOutputId = (): string => {
  return crypto.randomBytes(8).toString('hex');
};

/**
 * Creates a result object with metrics information for MCP tools
 */
export const formatPackToolResponse = async (
  context: McpToolContext,
  metrics: McpToolMetrics,
  outputFilePath: string,
  topFilesLen = 5,

View on GitHub (pinned to f465ad9093)

Solutions

1. Check permissions on the repomix tmp dir location (often under os.tmpdir()); ensure write access
2. Set a writable TMPDIR environment variable to a location you can write to
3. Free disk space if the cause mentions ENOSPC
4. Inspect the appended OS message (e.g. EACCES, ENOSPC, EROFS) to target the root cause

Example fix

// before
// TMPDIR=/nonexistent npx repomix-mcp  -> EACCES/ENOENT on mkdtemp
// after
export TMPDIR=/tmp
mkdir -p "$TMPDIR/mcp-outputs"
npx repomix-mcp

import fs from 'node:fs';
import os from 'node:os';
const base = process.env.TMPDIR || os.tmpdir();
fs.accessSync(base, fs.constants.W_OK); // throws early if not writable

try {
  await createToolWorkspace();
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).startsWith('Failed to create temporary directory')) {
    process.env.TMPDIR = '/tmp'; // or another writable dir, then retry
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: The temp base directory cannot be created or written because of permission denial (read-only filesystem, root-owned dir), disk full (ENOSPC), TMPDIR pointing to a nonexistent/unwritable location, or sandboxed environments blocking /tmp writes.

Common situations: Containers run with read-only tmpfs or no TMPDIR; CI runners with restricted permissions; disk quota exhausted; corporate security software blocking temp directory creation.

Related errors

• No repomix output file found in directory: ${inputPath}. Loo
• File or directory not found for path: ${inputPath}
• Failed to copy output file to ${targetPath}: Permission deni
• Failed to copy output file: ${(error as Error).message}
• Refusing to trust ${configName}: the remote repository's con

AI-assisted analysis of yamadashy/repomix@f465ad9093 (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/748b083f31d14c76. Report an issue: GitHub.