Specifying a nonexistent plug does cause any errors
Metadata
Current evaluation
Unknown plug typos once built silently; snapd now validates interfaces and Snapcraft has used that validation since before June 2020, leaving no Snapcraft-side fix.
Suggested action: close not a bug
Reason: The 2020-06-23 maintainer comment states that snapd performs interface validation and Snapcraft has accessed it "for a long time," explicitly marking the report released. Invalid-interface detection is therefore handled by snapd rather than remaining a Snapcraft defect requiring a hard-coded interface list.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
46
Quick Win:
39
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
87
Actionability:
95
Issue body
If for example I misspell network-bind
apps:
foo:
command: foo
plugs: [network-bin]
The snap still builds, but I get errors at runtime because no plug has been applied, it would be much better to error or at least warn that the plug I specified doesn't exist
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
46
Quick Win:
39
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
87
Actionability:
95
|
close not a bug | Unknown plug typos once built silently; snapd now validates interfaces and Snapcraft has used that validation since before June 2020, leaving no Snapcraft-side fix. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
11
Complexity:
67
Confidence:
87
Actionability:
72
|
close not a bug | Reported silent acceptance of a misspelled app plug; maintainers say snapd performs interface validation and marked the item released, though it remains open. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Impact:
70
Quick Win:
39
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
60
Actionability:
80
|
needs triage | Snapcraft silently accepts misspelled or nonexistent plug names in snapcraft.yaml, causing runtime errors instead of build-time validation failures | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
35
Quick Win:
19
Staleness:
92
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
45
Support Request:
35
|
needs triage | Feature request from 2016: snapcraft should error or warn when a nonexistent plug name is specified in snapcraft.yaml (e.g. misspelling network-bind). No labels, no comments, no maintainer interaction in 10 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Feature request to warn or error when a nonexistent plug is specified in snapcraft.yaml. Builds succeed but fail at runtime. Issue is over 9 years old with no maintainer activity. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
80
Support Request:
5
|
needs triage | Missing build-time validation for non-existent plugs in snapcraft.yaml, causing silent runtime failures. Untriaged, inactive for over 9 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
5
|
close stale | Snapcraft builds successfully despite misspelled or nonexistent plug names in snapcraft.yaml, causing runtime failures. The report requests build-time validation or warnings. The issue has been inactive for nearly 10 years with no maintainer response. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1697468
(confidence 96%)
A 2017 comment explicitly links this report to #1697468, which proposed snapd-style interface-name validation.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1697468 snapcraft doesn't validate plugs: values | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft accepts malformed plug entries such as plugs: [home x11] and fails later during publishing; maintainers acknowledged the diagnostic gap, but no implemented fix is evidenced. | |
| #2840 plugs: plugs can have no element | snapcraft | merged | Merged in snapcraft#2840 via commit 971424d0c, fixing null plug and slot definitions to use their names as implicit interfaces instead of crashing. |