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No help text for the "help" sub-command when in a directory containing snapcraft.yaml

View original Launchpad issue

Metadata

Project
snapcraft (launchpad)
Number
#2065230
Type
issue
State
open
Author
~brlin
Labels
craft-2904
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Confirmed 8.2.5 snapcraft help help failure with a snapcraft.yaml; the later craft-application command migration removes the old base-lookup crash path.

Suggested action: close resolved

Reason: The reporter and maintainer reproduced the traceback after creating an empty snapcraft.yaml, identified the early dispatcher/version-handling path, and linked CRAFT-2904. The current application recognizes the help command through get_other_command_group() and guards project loading; the command migration in commit 0bee3723c / PR #4830 removes the old yaml_data.get("base") failure path.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

Impact: 35 Quick Win: 17 Complexity: 45 Confidence: 78 Actionability: 90

Issue body

``` $ snapcraft --version snapcraft 8.2.5 $ snapcraft help help Usage: snapcraft [options] command [args]... Try 'snapcraft -h' for help. Error: command 'help' not found to provide help for ``` I was originally wanna check whether there an option to specify which base snap to provide the help text of the autotools plugin.

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 35
Quick Win: 17
Complexity: 45
Confidence: 78
Actionability: 90
close resolved Confirmed 8.2.5 snapcraft help help failure with a snapcraft.yaml; the later craft-application command migration removes the old base-lookup crash path.
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 35
Quick Win: 17
Complexity: 42
Confidence: 91
Actionability: 84
keep open Help dispatch fails or emits a traceback when a snapcraft.yaml is detected. Maintainers confirmed the report and track the work internally as CRAFT-2904.
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 25
Quick Win: 9
Complexity: 45
Confidence: 79
Actionability: 64
needs triage Snapcraft 8.2.5 fails on 'snapcraft help help' inside a directory containing snapcraft.yaml; the reporter sought base-specific Autotools plugin help, with no maintainer response or resolution.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Impact: 30
Quick Win: 24
Staleness: 90
Complexity: 20
Confidence: 60
Support Request: 10
close stale snapcraft help help command not found when in directory with snapcraft.yaml. Issue is 848 days old with no maintainer response.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 95
Complexity: 30
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
close stale Unattended bug report from 805 days ago where snapcraft help help fails in a project directory. No maintainer response or comments.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 95
Complexity: 10
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
close stale CLI help command fails with "command not found" when run inside a directory containing snapcraft.yaml. Unresolved for over two years with no maintainer interaction.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 92
Complexity: 25
Confidence: 80
Support Request: 15
close stale CLI help command fails with 'command not found' when executed in a directory containing snapcraft.yaml. The report has been inactive for over two years with no maintainer engagement or follow-up.

Update history

Date Change
created

Related work

  • Likely Fixed By: canonical/snapcraft#4830 (confidence 72%)

    The current history contains the craft-application command migration, and the dispatcher now recognizes the help command group, replacing the reported 8.2.5 behavior.

Related issues

Issue Project State Summary Similarity
#1986645 Some snapcraft 7.x commands have irrelevant "help" info snapcraft (launchpad) closed Fixed in Snapcraft 8 by command-group help refactoring merged in canonical/snapcraft#4934 (commit 6a388877f).
76%
#5169 snapcraft help fails on many commands snapcraft closed Fixed by merged PR #5178 (commit f97d032bf), adding missing help text for positional args; maintainer closed the issue noting the fix ships in snapcraft 8.5.1.
72%