Syntax error in source code

April 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

Playbook ID: syntax-error Category: build Severity: critical Tags: syntax, parse, compile

What this failure means

The compiler or interpreter hit invalid source syntax and stopped before the build could continue.

Common log signals

SyntaxError:
unexpected token
parse error
syntax error near
unterminated string literal
expected ';' before
error: expected expression
invalid syntax

Diagnosis

The failing source file contains a parse error such as an unclosed delimiter, invalid token, missing separator, or unresolved merge marker.

This is a hard failure: the code must be corrected before the build can pass.

Fix steps

  1. Look at the file and line number from the error message.
  2. Run the compiler or linter locally to reproduce the exact parse failure.
  3. Check for unclosed brackets, missing separators, or merge conflict markers such as <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>.
  4. If the file was generated or transformed, rebuild the generated output from source rather than patching the artifact by hand.

Validation

  • Re-run the parser, compiler, or linter locally.
  • Confirm the build step completes without the syntax error.

Likely files to inspect

  • src/
  • internal/
  • .github/workflows/*.yml

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain syntax-error
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

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Generated from playbooks/bundled/log/build/syntax-error.yaml. Do not edit directly — run make docs-generate.