What causes "git log command failed with {}" in zed-industries/zed?

Retry once: signal kills and transient resource exhaustion are the most common silent exits.

git log command failed with {}

Error message

git log command failed with {}

What it means

A streamed `git log` child process exited non-zero and stderr was empty or could not be read (the stderr read failure is only logged), so only the process exit status is reported. This shape — failure with no stderr — usually means the process was killed by a signal rather than git printing an error.

Source

Thrown at crates/git/src/repository.rs:3374

                        }
                        .into());
                    }
                }

                return Ok(());
            }

            if git_binary.is_trusted {
                let git_binary = git_binary.envs(HashMap::clone(&env));
                git_binary
                    .run(&["hook", "run", "--ignore-missing", hook.as_str()])
                    .await?;
            }
            Ok(())
        }
        .boxed()
    }

    fn initial_graph_data(
        &self,
        log_source: LogSource,
        log_order: LogOrder,
        request_tx: Sender<Vec<Arc<InitialGraphCommitData>>>,
    ) -> BoxFuture<'_, Result<()>> {
        let git = self.git_binary();

        async move {
            let log_source_args = log_source.get_args();
            let mut git_log_command = vec!["log", GRAPH_COMMIT_FORMAT, log_order.as_arg()];
            git_log_command.extend(log_source_args.iter().map(|arg| arg.as_ref()));
            let mut command = git.build_command(&git_log_command);
            command.stdout(Stdio::piped());
            command.stderr(Stdio::piped());

            let mut child = command.spawn()?;
            let stdout = child.stdout.take().context("failed to get stdout")?;

View on GitHub (pinned to 5a9b9558db)

Solutions

Retry once: signal kills and transient resource exhaustion are the most common silent exits.
Inspect the reported status: `signal: N (SIGKILL)` points to an external kill, while an exit code points to git itself.
Reproduce by running the same `git log` arguments manually to see whether any stderr appears.
If SIGKILL recurs, check system logs for OOM or sandbox kills and reduce the scan scope.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

match log_result {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("git log command failed with")
        && e.to_string().contains("signal") =>
    {
        // process was killed (OOM/sandbox): safe to retry once with a narrower scope
    }
    other => other?,
}

Prevention

Watch child process memory when streaming history of huge repos; narrow the scope instead of scanning everything.
Do not change PATH under a running app that spawns git.
Distinguish `signal: N` from exit codes in the status text — signals point to external kills.

When it happens

Trigger: git killed by a signal (status like `signal: 9 (SIGKILL)` from OOM killers or sandbox policies); the git binary removed or replaced mid-session; resource exhaustion during long history scans; stdin/stderr pipes closed early.

Common situations: Streaming history of very large repositories under memory pressure; sandboxed CI environments killing child processes; PATH changes underneath a long-lived application so the spawned binary disappears.

Understand the failure class

Background: "git command failed": what it means when a tool shells out to git and git exits non-zero — this error's family across 21 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of zed-industries/zed@5a9b9558db (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a110746bdf69c7e0. Report an issue: GitHub.