Metadata import fails with parsing error

I’m trying to track a particular table, export the metadata, then have it apply automatically on startup of the cli image. Below is my docker-compose file and sql startup script, as well as the metadata file. I get the following error:

hasura_1    | {"timestamp":"2020-10-08T09:33:28.000+0000","level":"info","type":"startup","detail":{"kind":"migrations-apply","info":"applying metadata from /hasura-metadata"}}
...
hasura_1    | time="2020-10-08T09:33:30Z" level=fatal msg="failed to apply metadata: cannot apply metadata on the database: [parse-failed] key \"tables\" not found ($[1])"

docker-compose.yml

version: '3.7'

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:9.6
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=postgres
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres
      - POSTGRES_DB=test
    ports:
      - 5432:5432
    volumes:
      - ./postgres/init.sql:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init.sql
  hasura:
#    image: hasura/graphql-engine:v1.3.2
    image: hasura/graphql-engine:v1.3.2.cli-migrations-v2
    volumes:
      - ./hasura_server/metadata:/hasura-metadata
    ports:
      - "8000:8080"
    depends_on:
      - postgres
    restart: always
    environment:
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:postgres@postgres:5432/test
      ## enable the console served by server
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENABLE_CONSOLE: "true" # set to "false" to disable console
      ## enable debugging mode. It is recommended to disable this in production
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_DEV_MODE: "true"
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENABLED_LOG_TYPES: startup, http-log, webhook-log, websocket-log, query-log
      ## uncomment next line to set an admin secret
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET: letmein

init.sql

create table sometable(id int);

metadata.json

{
  "version": 2,
  "tables": [
    {
      "table": {
        "schema": "public",
        "name": "sometable"
      }
    }
  ]
}

folder structure

[dewaldabrie]

@scriptonist Thanks that helped a lot. I managed with the following steps:

1. installation of local hasura cli
2. run docker-compose with either cli or non-cli image
3. configure data settings (which tables to track)
4. on local side, run hasura init my-project --endpoint http://localhost:<hasura_port>
5. on local side, ruin cd my-project; hasura metadata export
6. make sure the local metadata dir is mapped to /hasura-metadata on the hasura cli image
7. bring docker-compose up and down and will and state of metadata persists

[scriptonist]

Hey @dewaldabrie, I think it’s because we don’t have the directory structure which is expected by the CLI. What you can probably do is use the CLI to create a hasura project.

Assuming you are in hasura_server directory use the following command to initialize the project.

hasura init .

This should populate a couple of directories, of which one will be metadata directory. Then you can export the metadata from the server using the following command.

hasura metadata export

This should export metadata to metadata directory. Now things should work without a problem.