ENOENT: no such file or directory
The Salesforce CLI couldn't find a file or directory you referenced. Almost always a working-directory mismatch — the CLI is running in `/some/path` but the file path you passed is relative to where you *thought* you were.
Also seen asENOENT·no such file or directory·ENOENT: no such file or directory·sf cli ENOENT
ENOENT is the underlying Node.js filesystem error for "I asked the OS to open this path and the OS said no such thing exists." The Salesforce CLI surfaces it directly because Node sees it directly.
The two flavours
1. Wrong relative path
cd /Users/me/projects/myorg
sf data import tree --files Account.json
If Account.json doesn't exist in the current directory, you get ENOENT. The CLI doesn't search PATH or any project root — relative paths are relative to the shell's cwd.
Fix: use an absolute path, or cd to the directory first.
sf data import tree --files /Users/me/projects/myorg/data/Account.json
2. Path with a typo
Acount.json (missing 'c') is a common one. So is accounts.json vs Account.json (filesystem case-sensitivity matters on macOS/Linux).
Fix: copy the actual filename from ls, don't type it from memory.
Common CLI commands and the file they expect
| Command | File / dir |
|---|---|
sf data import tree --files X.json | A path to a JSON file with the tree-import shape |
sf project deploy start --source-dir X | A directory containing source-format metadata |
sf project deploy start --metadata-dir X | A directory containing MDAPI-format metadata |
sf data tree export --output-dir X | A directory that must exist (or use --mkdir) |
sf org login jwt --jwt-key-file server.key | A path to the private key file |
For each, the path is interpreted relative to the shell's current directory. If you're scripting in CI, anchor on the workspace root:
cd $WORKSPACE
sf project deploy start --source-dir force-app/main/default
Or use absolute paths derived from a known anchor.
When ENOENT names a file you don't recognise
Two specific cases:
~/.sf/config.json: ENOENT
The CLI's per-user config doesn't exist yet. Run sf config set target-org=alias once (or any other config command) to create it. Or just ignore it — the CLI works without the file.
A .forceignore issue
If sf project deploy start reports ENOENT on a metadata file you can see in your project, but the file is in .forceignore, the CLI may have miscalculated. Try --ignore-conflicts or temporarily comment out the .forceignore line.
A subtler version: relative paths in npm scripts
"scripts": {
"deploy:dev": "sf project deploy start --source-dir force-app"
}
Run as npm run deploy:dev. npm runs the script from package.json's directory — so force-app is relative to that. If your package.json is at the repo root and force-app is also at the root, fine. If they're at different levels, ENOENT.