Fix Mac Capture when bob is not resolved¶

This guide restores Bob Mac Capture when Settings cannot find bob, a command times out, target completion is empty or stale, or wikilink completion returns no candidates. The app never searches a login shell; it uses Settings › Bob › Executable override or four default paths.

Before you start¶

Install the CLI and Bob Mac Capture. Open the menu-bar item. These commands are read-only:

which bob
echo "$BOB_DIR"
bob --version

Confirm which bob prints an absolute path and bob --version exits 0.

1. Read the unresolved state¶

When bob is missing, the menu-bar bullet becomes a !. The tooltip reads Bob Mac Capture — bob is not resolved. Check Settings., and the menu gains bob Not Resolved — Open Settings…. Settings › Bob shows Resolved path as Not resolved plus the underlying error.

Open Settings from that menu row, or choose Settings and look at the Bob section. Confirm Resolved path and the error string before changing anything.

2. Point Settings at the installed `bob`¶

Set Executable override to the absolute path from which bob, or install bob at one of ~/.cargo/bin/bob, ~/bin/bob, /opt/homebrew/bin/bob, or /usr/local/bin/bob and leave the override empty. Relative paths are refused. Set Vault path to the vault BOB_DIR names.

Choose Recheck Bob from the menu-bar item. Confirm Resolved path matches which bob and the menu-bar icon's ! turns back into the Bob mark's bullet (Menu-bar icon).

3. Timeouts¶

Every bob invocation is bounded (20 seconds by default). A wedged process is terminated instead of leaving the panel stuck. The error names the timed-out command and never the captured text. Copy Diagnostic next to the error copies that bounded message.

Retry the same draft after Recheck Bob. If the same command times out from Terminal, fix that bob install first:

bob capture --dry-run --no-clip --format json 'test task'

4. Empty or stale target completion¶

Diagnostics reports Target cache stale with the scan error when target or route completion is empty or stale. Fix the named cause (an unreadable vault path is common), then reopen the panel so the refresh retries.

Confirm the error is gone in Settings › Diagnostics and that @ route completion lists notes again.

5. Wikilink completion¶

An empty wikilink list with no status change means no note, heading, or block matched the query. Try a shorter query or check the spelling. A status message starting with Link completion warning: means bob skipped one or more vault entries (an unreadable note or malformed alias) and still returned the candidates it could build; the warning names the problem. A process or transport failure uses the unresolved or timeout paths above rather than a silent empty list.

If it goes wrong¶

If Recheck Bob still shows Not resolved, the override is not an absolute path, that file is not executable, or none of the four default paths holds an executable bob. The resolver checks only that an override is absolute and executable, or finds an executable in those paths; it does not inspect code signatures. Paste the path from which bob with no wrapping quotes in the field. App signing requirements are separate from this diagnosis; see Install. Capability mismatches belong in Protocol; a swift test failure with no such module 'XCTest' belongs in Build.