alden

Troubleshooting

Start with alden doctor: it checks your sign-in, model, this clone and the code graph, and says how to fix what's wrong.

GitHub

"Bad credentials" or "GitHub rejected the token". The token Alden is using was revoked or expired. Run alden auth status to see where it comes from:

Team review requests are missing. The token needs the read:org scope. alden auth status lists the token's scopes. Sign in again with alden auth login --device, or run gh auth refresh -s read:org.

Private repos are missing. The token needs the repo scope, and your organisation may need to approve Alden's OAuth app. Check your organisation's third-party access settings on GitHub.

Models

"No Anthropic API key found, so only the checks ran." Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, run ant auth login, or pass --no-llm to hide the note.

"Couldn't find Google Cloud credentials for Vertex." Run gcloud auth application-default login, or set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to a service account key file. Also set model.projectId.

"model.name is a Claude model, but the provider is openai-compatible." Set your local model's name, e.g. alden config set model.name qwen3-coder:30b.

"Over budget." The review would exceed budget.perReviewUsd or what's left of budget.dailyUsd. alden spend shows where you are. Raise a cap, lower effort, or use a cheaper model with --model haiku.

Reviews are slow. Model reviews at high effort can take a minute. Try --effort medium or --effort low. The deterministic checks don't depend on the model.

Code graph

"Run alden review from a clone of owner/repo to check callers outside the diff." For PR reviews, Alden needs a clone of the PR's repo. cd into one and run the review again. See Reviewing PRs.

"This clone has no remote for owner/repo." None of the clone's remotes point at the PR's repo. Add one, e.g. git remote add upstream https://github.com/owner/repo.

"The index was cut short, so there may be more." Indexing hit its 60-second limit. Run the review again: the parsed files are cached, so the next run gets further.

A stale PR worktree. Delete ~/.alden/worktrees and run git worktree prune in your clone. Alden recreates the worktree next time.

The database

alden doctor says it couldn't open alden.db. Alden's database needs Node 22.13 or later; check node --version, or use the standalone binary. If the file is damaged, move ~/.alden/alden.db aside: Alden starts a new one (your feedback and notes stay in the old file).

A flag you expected is missing. If your feedback hid it, the briefing says so under the places to look ("Hidden: …"). alden memory lists what Alden learned; alden memory forget <id> undoes it.

macOS

"EPERM: operation not permitted, uv_cwd". Your terminal app isn't allowed to read the folder you're in, usually Desktop, Documents or Downloads. Allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders, or run Alden from another terminal or folder.

The standalone binary

macOS asks whether alden may use your keychain. The binary is a different program from the npm version, so macOS asks once before it reads the sign-in Alden stored. Choose Always Allow.

"The standalone alden binary doesn't include the bedrock SDK." The binary bundles the Anthropic API and local models, but not the AWS, Google Cloud or Azure SDKs. To use Bedrock, Vertex or Foundry, install Alden from npm with the SDK beside it, e.g. npm install -g alden @anthropic-ai/bedrock-sdk.