Troubleshooting

pvtr: command not found

Check whether the binary exists where you installed it:

Get-Command pvtr
ls $HOME/.privateer/bin/pvtr
ls /usr/local/bin/pvtr

If found, the install directory is not on PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"
source ~/.bashrc

permission denied

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pvtr

On macOS, approve the binary through Gatekeeper: System Settings → Privacy and Security.

Plugin not discovered

pvtr list -a    # check what Core can see
ls $HOME/.privateer/bin/

The plugin value in config must match the binary filename exactly (case-sensitive, no path prefix, no file extension). If using a custom binaries path, pass it consistently:

pvtr run --binaries-path /opt/pvtr-plugins

Or set it in config:

binaries-path: /opt/pvtr-plugins

No output files

Verify in config:

write: true
write-directory: evaluation_results   # must be a writable path

Then increase verbosity to identify the failure:

pvtr run -c config.yml --loglevel debug

Policy validation error at startup

If Core exits immediately with a policy-related error, the catalogs or applicability values in your config are not recognized by the plugin. Check the plugin’s documentation for valid catalog IDs and applicability tiers. This error fires before any plugin subprocess is launched.

Plugin crash recorded as error

A plugin that panics or exits unexpectedly is recorded as error for all its controls. Core does not retry. Check <service-name>.log for the subprocess output. Run the plugin in debug mode to reproduce the failure outside the gRPC boundary:

./my-plugin debug --service my-service

version returns “edge”

Built from source without a release tag. Expected behavior for development builds. Use a release binary in production pipelines.