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Better error message when we can't find snapcraft.yaml

View original Github issue

Metadata

Project
snapcraft
Number
#4636
Type
issue
State
open
Author
lengau
Labels
—
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Missing snapcraft.yaml now raises ProjectFileMissingError, but its message lacks the requested documentation link; the original resolver was replaced by get_snap_project.

Suggested action: keep open

Reason: The current get_snap_project() raises ProjectFileMissingError with "Ensure the project file exists," but without a docs_url or doc_slug, so the documentation-link requirement remains unresolved despite the cleaner error. The maintainer explicitly linked merged PR #4611 as the originating discussion, confirming this is a scoped follow-up.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

Impact: 32 Quick Win: 20 Complexity: 24 Confidence: 94 Actionability: 84

Issue body

### What needs to get done In the craft-application branch, `_resolve_project_path` should error more cleanly if we can't find `snapcraft.yaml`, alerting the user with a nice error message that links to documentation ### Why it needs to get done The behaviour right now could be unclear to an end user.

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 32
Quick Win: 20
Complexity: 24
Confidence: 94
Actionability: 84
keep open Missing snapcraft.yaml now raises ProjectFileMissingError, but its message lacks the requested documentation link; the original resolver was replaced by get_snap_project.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Impact: 35
Quick Win: 20
Complexity: 25
Confidence: 70
Actionability: 75
keep open Enhance error message in craft-application when project file is missing, adding documentation links. The referenced function was renamed to resolve_project_file_path but the error could still include docs_url/doc_slug.
qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Impact: 30
Quick Win: 26
Staleness: 75
Complexity: 15
Confidence: 60
Support Request: 10
needs triage Feature request to improve the error message when snapcraft.yaml is not found in the craft-application branch, adding a helpful message with a documentation link. No labels, no assignee, last activity 536 days ago.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 85
Complexity: 15
Confidence: 80
Support Request: 5
needs triage Improve error messaging in resolve_project_path when snapcraft.yaml is missing. Currently unlabelled, unassigned, and inactive for over two years with no maintainer follow-up.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 90
Complexity: 20
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 5
close stale Request to improve error handling in _resolve_project_path when snapcraft.yaml is missing, providing a clearer message with documentation links. Currently unlabelled and inactive for over two years.

Update history

No update history recorded yet.

Related work

  • Related To: snapcraft#4611 (confidence 100%)

    The maintainer linked this issue to the discussion on the merged snap-manifest PR.

  • Related To: snapcraft#5349 (confidence 88%)

    The craft-application 5 rebase replaced the old resolver flow and introduced the current ProjectFileMissingError path.

Related issues

Issue Project State Summary Similarity
#4680 fix: show better error when project file is missing snapcraft closed Merged in canonical/snapcraft#4680, improving the error shown when a project file is missing; the maintainer confirmed the code remained necessary for documentation links.
74%