Include File Not Found

The file named by an include shortcode could not be read.

Q-17-2 — Include File Not Found

The file named by an include shortcode could not be read.

What this means

An {{< include >}} shortcode names a file that Quarto could not read — most often because no file exists at the resolved path. The content the include asks for cannot be supplied.

The document therefore fails to render, and no output file is written for it. A page written without the included content would look complete while quietly missing a section, so Quarto reports the problem instead of shipping the hole. (Quarto 1 also treats an unreadable include as fatal.)

Why this happens

Common causes:

• A typo in the path, or a file that was renamed or moved after the include was written.
• A path resolved from the wrong base. Relative include paths are resolved from the directory of the file containing the shortcode — not the project root, and not the top-level document. A snippet that lives in a subdirectory resolves its own includes from that subdirectory. To resolve from the project root instead, start the path with /: {{< include /snippets/note.qmd >}} means <project>/snippets/note.qmd no matter which file contains the shortcode.
• Case mismatch on a case-sensitive filesystem (for example, deploying to Linux a project authored on macOS).
• A permissions problem — the file exists but is not readable. The message includes the underlying I/O error in this case.

How to fix

Check the path in the message: it is the fully resolved path Quarto tried to read. Compare it against the actual file location and fix the path in the shortcode — remembering that a relative path is relative to the file the shortcode appears in, while a path starting with / is relative to the project root.