Troubleshooting

Quick Diagnostic

devdiff doctor

This checks everything and tells you what's wrong.

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Common Errors by Symptom

"No changes detected"

Problem: DevDiff says there's nothing to analyze.

Solutions:

1. Did you stage your changes?

   git add .
   devdiff generate

2. Did you commit without staging new changes?

   # Make a change first
   echo "// test" >> anyfile.js
   git add anyfile.js
   devdiff generate

3. Is this a fresh repo with only one commit?

   # DevDiff compares staged changes to last commit
   # Make a change, stage it, then run devdiff generate

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"Not a git repository"

Problem: You're not in a folder with .git.

Solutions:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
devdiff init
devdiff generate

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"Unknown option --persona"

Problem: The persona flag isn't recognized.

Solutions:

# Use the correct syntax:
devdiff generate --persona developer    # ✅
devdiff generate -p ceo                 # ✅ (short form)

# NOT:
devdiff generate --persona              # ❌ (missing value)
devdiff generate persona developer      # ❌ (wrong order)

Valid personas: developer, ceo, educator, robot, data-analyst, journalist, pm, compliance

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AI errors (Ollama, OpenAI, etc.)

See dedicated guides:

• Ollama Errors
• Network Errors

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Platform-Specific Issues

• Windows Issues
• macOS Issues
• Linux Issues