Improve error message for provider not installed.
Metadata
Current evaluation
Improve uninformative 'Provider is required but not installed' prompt to clarify LXD init and what 'y' does; maintainers acknowledge quick fix after craft-providers PR 366.
Suggested action: keep open
Reason: Maintainer mr-cal acknowledged the issue, pointed to an outstanding TODO in charmcraft/providers.py, and noted the prerequisite craft-providers work is complete, making this a quick, well-scoped fix. dstathis also proposed a concrete wording improvement ('Container provider'), so the issue is triaged and actionable.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
18
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
75
Actionability:
80
Issue body
### What needs to get done
ATM running `pack` before having done `lxd init` gives:
```
$ charmcraft pack
Provider is required but not installed. Do you wish to install provider and configure it with the defaults? [y/N]:
```
It would be more helpful if the error message stated more clearly what needs doing and what entering `y` will in fact do.
How about:
```
$ charmcraft pack
lxd is present but not initialized. Did you forget to run `lxd init`? Do you wish to initialize lxd with its default profile? [y/N]:
```
### Why it needs to get done
error message as it stands is not informative
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ~deepseek/deepseek-pro-latest |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
18
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
75
Actionability:
80
|
keep open | Improve uninformative 'Provider is required but not installed' prompt to clarify LXD init and what 'y' does; maintainers acknowledge quick fix after craft-providers PR 366. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
19
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
70
Actionability:
80
|
keep open | Improve unhelpful error message when LXD is not initialized. Maintainers acknowledged it as a quick fix with an outstanding TODO, but it remains unfixed. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
20
Staleness:
70
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
60
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Improve the 'Provider is required but not installed' error message shown by charmcraft pack before lxd init, to clarify what is missing and what answering y does. Maintainers acknowledged in 2024-02 and noted prerequisite craft-providers work was complete, but no fix has landed. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
85
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Suggests improving an unhelpful error message when a container provider is missing or uninitialized. Maintainers acknowledge it as a known TODO and note prerequisite work is complete, but implementation is pending. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
80
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
5
|
keep open | Improvement request to clarify the error message shown when charmcraft pack runs without LXD initialized. Maintainers acknowledge it as a known TODO and quick fix, but it has seen no implementation activity in over a year. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
80
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
0
|
keep open | Improves the unhelpful 'Provider is required but not installed' error message in charmcraft pack to clarify required actions. Maintainers acknowledge a TODO exists and prerequisite work is complete, but the issue remains open with no recent updates. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Related To:
canonical/craft-providers#366
(confidence 90%)
Maintainer mr-cal cited this PR as the completed prerequisite work in craft-providers for improving the message.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #4262 LXD errors from Craft Providers not properly presented | snapcraft | closed | Fixed by #4295 (commit 511061252), which catches Craft Providers errors and shows user-friendly messages instead of tracebacks; backported for 7.5 by #4419 (commit 6b2f6d207). |