Taskfile not found on certain Linux distros

[triole]

Description

I tried to run task in a folder where a Taskfile.yml was located. I got the following message

task: No Taskfile found at "" (or any of the parent directories until ownership changed). Run `task --init` to create a new Taskfile.

I encountered the problem on Rocky Linux 8.10 and inside an Alpine docker container. It does not happen on Ubuntu 25.10 or Debian 13.

I am pretty sure the problem came into being in the last few weeks because it did not exist before.

Version

3.48.0

Operating system

Rocky Linux 8.10, Alpine 3.23.3

Experiments Enabled

No response

Example Taskfile

[trulede]

The error would suggest that file ownership change occurred.

task/errors/errors_taskfile.go

Line 23 in 60a808c

walkText = " (or any of the parent directories until ownership changed)."

However, I wonder if the logic order is wrong here:

if parentOwner != owner {
	return paths, os.ErrPermission
} else if path == parentPath {
	return paths, nil
}

its was previously

if (path == parentPath || (parentOwner != owner) {
    return paths, nil
}

and the difference is that the path== parentPath case is evaluated first. That might cause an issue in the case of running in a container where the container user is not the same user as the file.

Its also a bit odd because that error message is in code that is not yet released. So are you using something from main branch?

[trulede]

@andreynering @vmaerten FYI ... I will make a PR this evening, changing the order of the if/else, because I think it could cause this issue in some docker containers.

[trulede]

@triole I have to assume that you are running from "main" and encounter this problem based on a recent change. If you are able to, please try the PR, and see if it helps. I think this fixes the problem you encountered, but I have not proven it yet.

[trulede]

@triole can you share the command you use to run the docker container, and a minimal copy of the Dockerfile - just the parts relating to the base image, installing task, the taskfile (if any) and the entrypoint/working dir etc.

[triole]

As I mentioned. It is not just Docker. It also does not work on Rocky Linux which is the successor of CentOS. Plainly on the machine. No docker involved.

I just discovered that Alpine is also a problem because I use it inside an Alpine container and it stopped working suddenly a few days ago. I checked your pr for both cases and none did work.

But anyway the Dockerfile I use is very basic. I have Alpine and install a few basic things. Task is mounted via a volume. It looks something like this...

FROM alpine:latest

ARG UID USER GID GROUP HOME TZ

ENV UID="${UID}"
ENV USER="${USER}"
ENV GID="${GID}"
ENV GROUP="${GROUP}"
ENV HOME="${HOME}"
ENV TZ="${TZ}"

ENV PATH="${PATH}:/vol/shed:/vol/mybins:/vol/shelltools"

RUN apk --no-cache --update add tzdata
RUN cp -f "/usr/share/zoneinfo/${TZ}" "/etc/localtime"
RUN echo "${TZ}" > /etc/timezone

RUN apk add --update --no-cache bash curl envsubst grep

RUN addgroup -g "${GID}" -S "${GROUP}"
RUN adduser -S "${USER}" -u "${UID}" -G "${GROUP}" -h "${HOME}" -s "/bin/sh"

RUN mkdir -p "/vol/data"
RUN chown -R "${USER}:${GROUP}" "${HOME}" "/vol"

USER "${USER}"
WORKDIR "${HOME}"

The run command is stored inside a Kubernetes deployment config. It all worked fine the last years but then without a change of the Dockerfile or the Kubernetes configs the described problem occured. So I had to change the run command from task to task -t Taskfile.yml to avoid the error.

[trulede]

@triole Thanks. I was able to reproduce the problem and believe I have a solution. The PR is updated.

For reference, the testscript I used:

env HOME=$TMPDIR
env IMAGE_NAME=task-e2e-taskfile-owner:test
env TASK_VERSION=v3.48.0

# Build docker image
exec ls -l
exec env sort
exec docker build --build-arg TASK_VERSION=$TASK_VERSION --tag $IMAGE_NAME .

# Test: task init
exec docker run --rm $IMAGE_NAME --version 
exec docker run --rm --volume $WORK:/work --entrypoint ls $IMAGE_NAME -l
exec docker run --rm --volume $WORK:/work $IMAGE_NAME 
stdout 'foobar'



-- Taskfile.yml --
version: '3'

tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - echo "foobar"


-- Dockerfile --
FROM golang AS task-builder
ARG TASK_VERSION=main
WORKDIR /build
RUN git clone --depth 1 --branch ${TASK_VERSION} https://github.com/go-task/task.git . && \
    CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -ldflags="-w -s" -o task ./cmd/task
WORKDIR /work
ENTRYPOINT ["/build/task"]