Handle malformed/missing builds.json gracefully in refresh & validate_json

[sagpatil]

Summary

Two release-automation scripts could crash with an unhandled exception and a Python traceback instead of the project's clean common.die() / exit-1 path when builds.json (or builds.schema.json) is malformed or missing — the kind of state you get from a merge conflict or a hand-edit during a release. Both are small, mechanical fixes that route the failure into the error handling the code already intends.

These surfaced from a code review of the repo. Neither can corrupt a published image or pass a check that should fail — the impact is purely operator-facing log hygiene (traceback vs. clean error) — but validate_json in particular is the tool meant to catch a bad builds.json, so crashing on one is a poor failure mode.

Bug 1 — refresh.py: builds.load() outside its try block

main() called builds.load() / find_cli() one line above the try whose except ValueError / except OSError handlers were clearly meant to cover them — json.JSONDecodeError is a subclass of ValueError, and FileNotFoundError a subclass of OSError. Because the call sat outside the block, a malformed builds.json raised an uncaught JSONDecodeError instead of being reported via common.die().

Fix: move builds.load() / find_cli() inside the existing try. No new handler needed — the existing except ValueError/except OSError now cover it.

     cli = args.stellar_cli_version
-    data = builds.load()
-    entry = builds.find_cli(data, cli)

     try:
+        data = builds.load()
+        entry = builds.find_cli(data, cli)
         if args.rust_versions:

Bug 2 — validate_json.py: unguarded re-parse in main()

main() re-parsed builds.json and builds.schema.json with no guard. check_sorted_keys() does catch JSONDecodeError, but only logs and continues (it doesn't stop the run), so execution still reached the unguarded re-parse on the same file and crashed with a traceback.

Fix: guard the parse and return 1 with a clean error message, consistent with the rest of the script.

     builds_path = root / "builds.json"
     schema_path = root / "builds.schema.json"
-    builds_data = json.loads(builds_path.read_text())
-    schema = json.loads(schema_path.read_text())
+    try:
+        builds_data = json.loads(builds_path.read_text())
+        schema = json.loads(schema_path.read_text())
+    except (OSError, json.JSONDecodeError) as exc:
+        common.err(f"could not load builds.json/builds.schema.json: {exc}")
+        return 1

Testing

• tests/integration/test_refresh.py — 12 passed.
• Functional repro confirms both paths now degrade gracefully on a malformed/missing builds.json:
  • refresh.py → SystemExit(1) via common.die() (clean stderr message), not a raw JSONDecodeError.
  • validate_json.py → guarded block catches FileNotFoundError and JSONDecodeError, returns 1.

Note: the validate_json unit suite couldn't be executed in my local sandbox — the only available local 3.14 interpreter is 3.14.0a5, on which jsonschema/attrs segfault at import (an alpha-CPython issue, unrelated to this change). It should run normally on CI's pinned 3.14.5. The guarded block was verified in isolation instead.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR improves operator-facing failure behavior in the release automation scripts by ensuring missing/malformed builds.json (and schema) errors follow the project’s clean common.err() / exit-1 path instead of producing uncaught Python tracebacks.

Changes:

• scripts/refresh.py: moves builds.load() / builds.find_cli() inside the existing try so malformed/missing builds.json is handled by existing except blocks.
• scripts/validate_json.py: wraps parsing of builds.json / builds.schema.json in a guard to return 1 with a clean error message on read/parse failure.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
scripts/validate_json.py	Adds guarded load/parse of builds.json and builds.schema.json to avoid unhandled exceptions.
scripts/refresh.py	Ensures builds.json load/lookup happens inside existing error-handling try block.

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