---
title: "Content Frontmatter Causes `astro build` Error?"
date: 2024-11-24
tags: ["astro"]
category: "Astro"
description: "Keep your eyes peeled for special characters."
---

Another entry for this site. I ran `pnpm run build` after adding yesterday's entry, and got this error:

```
✘ [ERROR] The build was canceled

end of the stream or a document separator is expected
  Hint:
    Browser APIs are not available on the server.

    If the code is in a framework component, try to access these objects after rendering using lifecycle methods or use a `client:only` directive to make the component exclusively run on the client.

    See https://docs.astro.build/en/guides/troubleshooting/#document-or-window-is-not-defined for more information.

  Location:
    /home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/src/content/journal-entries/2024-11-23.md:1:7
  Stack trace:
    at generateError (/home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/node_modules/.pnpm/js-yaml@3.14.1/node_modules/js-yaml/lib/js-yaml/loader.js:167:10)
    at readDocument (/home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/node_modules/.pnpm/js-yaml@3.14.1/node_modules/js-yaml/lib/js-yaml/loader.js:1545:5)
    at load (/home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/node_modules/.pnpm/js-yaml@3.14.1/node_modules/js-yaml/lib/js-yaml/loader.js:1614:19)
    at module.exports (/home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/node_modules/.pnpm/gray-matter@4.0.3/node_modules/gray-matter/lib/parse.js:12:17)
    at matter (/home/avraham/sakal.us/blog-astro/node_modules/.pnpm/gray-matter@4.0.3/node_modules/gray-matter/index.js:50:10)
 ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 1.
```

I was obviously not using Browser APIs in an `.md` file. But, it did report that file as the culprit (specifically, the first line), so I checked it out.

```md
---
title: @astrojs/node Build Error
date: 2024-11-23
---

<... rest of the file...>
```

I noticed the `@` was a different color than the rest of the line. I thought YAML interprets any non-digit character as the start of a string; but just in case I wrapped the line in quotes, and it worked!

```md
---
title: "@astrojs/node Build Error"
date: 2024-11-23
---

<... rest of the file...>
```

It seems that the `@` character signals an import from another file, and obviously there wasn't any so-named file.