Q&A what does this error mean?

[fastchain]

Question

Hello,

I’m feeling quite stuck and would really appreciate your help.

I’ve been trying to run Vector using a directory that contains my configuration files, but I keep getting an error that I can’t make sense of. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any way to get more detailed error information.

Could you please help me figure out what’s going wrong?

My configs are organized this way:

root@server:/etc/vector# tree
.
|-- sinks
|   `-- log.collector.local.yaml
|-- sources
|   `-- heartbeat.yaml
|-- transforms
|   `-- heartbeat.yaml
`-- vector.yaml

Vector Config

root@server:/etc/vector# cat vector.yaml 
data_dir: /var/lib/vector

root@server:/etc/vector# cat sources/heartbeat.yaml 
heartbeat:
    type: demo_logs
    format: shuffle
    lines:
      - "heartbeat"
      #count: 1
    interval: 10   # emit every s

root@server:/etc/vector# cat transforms/heartbeat.yaml 
transforms:
  enrich_heartbeat:
    type: remap

    inputs:
      - heartbeat
    source: |
      del(.source_id)
      .message    = "heartbeat"
      .heartbeat  = true

      .host = get_hostname!()
      .hostname = .host
      if is_null(.hostname) || .hostname == "" {
        .hostname,err = get_env_var("HOSTNAME")
      } 

      .source_id  = .hostname
      .logsource  = "heartbeat"      # <- make it obvious

      stringstrinh = string(.message)
      parsed,err = parse_json(stringstrinh)

root@server:/etc/vector# cat sinks/log.dfsf.org.yaml  
sinks:
  to_collector:
    type: http
    inputs: ["*"]
    method: post
    uri: "https://log.collector.local:8443/ingest"   
    encoding:
      codec: json
    compression: gzip
    batch:
      max_bytes: 1048576
      timeout_secs: 1
    request:
      in_flight_limit: 8
      timeout_secs: 30
      retry_backoff_secs: 1
      retry_max_duration_secs: 600

Vector Logs

root@server:/etc/vector# vector validate --config-dir  /etc/vector
Failed to load ["/etc/vector"]
------------------------------
x missing field `type`
in `heartbeat`

vector -V
vector 0.50.0 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu 9053198 2025-09-23 14:18:50.944442940)

[pront]

I merged the above into:

sources:
  heartbeat:
    type: demo_logs
    format: shuffle
    lines:
      - "heartbeat"
      #count: 1
    interval: 10   # emit every s

transforms:
  enrich_heartbeat:
    type: remap

    inputs:
      - heartbeat
    source: |
      del(.source_id)
      .message    = "heartbeat"
      .heartbeat  = true

      .host = get_hostname!()
      .hostname = .host
      if is_null(.hostname) || .hostname == "" {
        .hostname,err = get_env_var("HOSTNAME")
      } 

      .source_id  = .hostname
      .logsource  = "heartbeat"      # <- make it obvious

      stringstrinh = string(.message)
      parsed,err = parse_json(stringstrinh)

sinks:
  to_collector:
    type: http
    inputs: ["*"]
    method: post
    uri: "https://log.collector.local:8443/ingest"
    encoding:
      codec: json
    compression: gzip
    batch:
      max_bytes: 1048576
      timeout_secs: 1
    request:
      in_flight_limit: 8
      timeout_secs: 30
      retry_backoff_secs: 1
      retry_max_duration_secs: 600

And ran:

❯ vector validate pront/configs/merged.yaml
√ Loaded ["pront/configs/merged.yaml"]
2025-10-14T17:10:06.765597Z  WARN transform{component_kind="transform" component_id=enrich_heartbeat component_type=remap}: vector::transforms::remap: VRL compilation warning. warnings=
warning[E900]: unused variable `err`
  ┌─ :8:13
  │
8 │   .hostname,err = get_env_var("HOSTNAME")
  │             ^^^ help: use the result of this expression or remove it
  │
  = this expression has no side-effects
  = see language documentation at https://vrl.dev
  = try your code in the VRL REPL, learn more at https://vrl.dev/examples

warning[E900]: unused variable `parsed`
   ┌─ :15:1
   │
15 │ parsed,err = parse_json(stringstrinh)
   │ ^^^^^^ help: use the result of this expression or remove it
   │
   = this expression has no side-effects
   = see language documentation at https://vrl.dev
   = try your code in the VRL REPL, learn more at https://vrl.dev/examples

√ Component configuration
√ Health check "to_collector"
--------------------------------------
                             Validated

Note that I added a top level sources field.
If your real config (in prod) is so small I would recommend merging it in one file.

This might be a Vector config loading bug related to your file organization.