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When Mise Ignores Your Global Config: A Tale of Red Herrings and Stale State

·5 mins·

Imagine this: you’re happily typing away in Neovim, living your best dev life, and suddenly you see an error message like this:

mise ERROR No version is set for shim: node
Set a global default version with one of the following:
mise use -g node@latest

And you think: “But hang on, I do have node = "latest" in my global Mise config (~/.config/mise/config.toml)—did Mise not even read it?”

Well, yes. And, bizarrely, also no. This is the story of how I discovered Mise was effectively giving my global config the silent treatment—while insisting it was “tracked.” Below is the journey, the misdirections that could lead you astray, and the eventual fix that saved my Neovim setup from imploding.

1. The Symptom: Shell Fine, Neovim Complaining #

Neovim’s Perspective #

  • LSP and plugins throw “No version is set for shim: node.”
  • Running :!mise doctor inside Neovim might still show shims_on_path: yes, implying it does find the shims.
  • However, any configured tools (like Node or Python versions) aren’t actually recognised.
  • If you run mise doctor in Neovim and see:
    ignored_config_files:
  ~/.config/mise/config.toml
    …that’s the bright, flashing sign that your global config is effectively in the naughty corner.

Shell’s Perspective #

  • Initially, your shell appears fine. Possibly from earlier usage or leftover state, you could run Node without hassle.
  • But if you check mise doctor in the shell and see the same “ignored_config_files” line, then yes—Mise is ignoring ~/.config/mise/config.toml there, too. The difference is that your shell had enough leftover “environment sauce” to carry on, while Neovim was left out in the cold.

Basically, the shell was “putting on a brave face,” but Neovim was being more candid: no global config, no party.

2. The Red Herrings #

It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole here. These were my (infuriating) potential culprits along the way.

Red Herring #1: Missing eval "$(mise init -)" in Your Shell RC #

Mise generally wants you to eval "$(mise init -)" in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc. If you haven’t done that, heartbreak can follow. But if your shell and Neovim shell commands both report “activated: yes” in mise doctor, then you know this isn’t the problem. Next suspect, please.

Red Herring #2: Neovim Missing Shims in PATH #

It’s common to forget to prepend ~/.local/share/mise/shims to Neovim’s PATH. (The Mise docs mention it, if you RTFM) If that’s missing, you might indeed see “No version is set.” In this situation, though, I’d already done:

local mise_shim_path = vim.fn.expand("~/.local/share/mise/shims")
vim.env.PATH = mise_shim_path .. ":" .. vim.env.PATH

So the shims were recognised, yet the dreaded “No version is set” still appeared. Therefore, not the culprit.

Red Herring #3: Invalid config.toml or Stray BOM #

Sometimes a sneaky “invisible” character or a bung [tools] block can cause issues. But I triple-checked, and it was squeaky clean—no stray BOM, no dodgy syntax. Another suspect ruled out.

3. The Real Culprit: Duplicate Entries in ignored-configs/ and tracked-configs/ #

Deep inside Mise’s labyrinthine innards, you’ll find two directories:

  • ~/.local/state/mise/tracked-configs/
  • ~/.local/state/mise/ignored-configs/

They’re basically two lists of symlinks: one for config files Mise actively loads, and one for config files it’s ignoring. The kicker: if your ~/.config/mise/config.toml somehow appears in both with the same hash, you get Schrödinger’s config—both “tracked” and “ignored,” which effectively means ignored.

Here’s what I found when I looked at my own setup:

❯ ls -al ~/.local/state/mise/ignored-configs/
Permissions Size User Date Modified Name
lrwxrwxrwx     - g    27 Nov  2024   mise-config.toml-506ade9caf4d46ff -> /home/g/.config/mise/config.toml

❯ ls -al ~/.local/state/mise/tracked-configs/
Permissions Size User Date Modified Name
lrwxrwxrwx     - g    11 Mar 15:16   49bc95cf95659576 -> /home/g/mise-test/.mise.toml
lrwxrwxrwx     - g    10 Oct  2024   506ade9caf4d46ff -> /home/g/.config/mise/config.toml

Notice the exact same hash identifier (506ade9caf4d46ff) appearing in both directories? That’s the smoking gun. My config.toml contained simple version settings:

But…why? #

You might have told Mise to “ignore” that config at some point (maybe after a prompt to trust or not trust the config?), and then later on you or Mise tried to track it again. Now Mise is confused, sees it in both lists, and the “ignore” overrides your “track.” Classic.

4. Fixing It #

  1. Remove the Symlink in ignored-configs/.
cd ~/.local/state/mise/ignored-configs
ls -l # find something referencing ~/.config/mise/config.toml
rm mise-config.toml-<some-hash>

  1. Check tracked-configs/. Make sure your config is still there. If it’s missing, Mise may recreate it once you run mise doctor or another command.

  2. (Optional) Wipe All Mise State. If you want a truly clean slate:

rm -rf ~/.local/state/mise

Then re-run mise doctor or mise use -g ... so Mise can rebuild everything.

After that, if you run mise doctor, you should see something like:

shims_on_path: yes

config_files: ~/.config/mise/config.toml

ignored_config_files: (none)

And—finally—Neovim’s LSP or plugins will finally respect your global config’s versions.

Conclusion #

If you’re getting “No version is set for shim: node” in Neovim (but not obviously in your shell), don’t be misled by typical PATH or shell init suspects. Check ~/.local/state/mise/ignored-configs/ to see if your global mise config is blacklisted. With that fixed, Neovim’s LSP or plugins will properly recognize the correct binaries.

Quick Recap: #

  1. Look for your ~/.config/mise/config.toml under ignored-configs/.
  2. Remove it if it’s there.
  3. Confirm you get shims_on_path: yes for both shell and Neovim.
  4. Celebrate having consistent tool versions everywhere!

Hopefully that saves you the same confusion I faced. Happy debugging!