Tailwind parcel watcher issue

support
1

I’m trying to use Tailwind with Theme Pehtheme Hugo (only the theme) - GitHub - dceuppens/tailwindtrial: Hugo Tailwindtrial
I can use the theme without issues. When I want implement the steps mentioned in the doc css.TailwindCSS to adapt the css I get the error below. It seems Parcel Watcher is looking for @parcel/watcher-darwin-x64 but I’m using a Mac arm64 - and watcher-darwin-arm64 is installed.
Not sure if this is a Hugo issue - or more related to some Tailwind configuration issue - Hugo, Node, Tailwind etc are updated to latest versions. Gemini/Claude are not really helpful to fix the issue
Hope someone can help
Dirk

dirkceuppens@MacBook-Pro recepten % hugo server                                        

Watching for changes in /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/archetypes, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/assets/{css,images}, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/content/posts, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/data, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/i18n, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/layouts/{_default,_partials}, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/package.json, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/static, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/themes/pehtime/archetypes, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/themes/pehtime/assets/{css,js}, ... and 2 more

Watching for config changes in /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/hugo.toml, /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/themes/pehtime/hugo.toml

Start building sites … 

hugo v0.155.3+extended+withdeploy darwin/amd64 BuildDate=2026-02-08T16:40:42Z VendorInfo=Homebrew



Built in 2635 ms

ERROR error building site: renderDeferred: "/Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/themes/pehtime/layouts/_default/list.html:16:7": execute of template failed: template: list.html:16:7: executing at <partial "css.html" .>: error calling partial: "/Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/layouts/_partials/css.html:5:38": execute of template failed: template: _partials/css.html:5:38: executing "_partials/css.html" at <.RelPermalink>: error calling RelPermalink: TAILWINDCSS: failed to transform "/css/main.css" (text/css): /Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/node_modules/@parcel/watcher/index.js:27

      throw new Error(`No prebuild or local build of @parcel/watcher found. Tried ${name}. Please ensure it is installed (don't use --no-optional when installing with npm). Otherwise it is possible we don't support your platform yet. If this is the case, please report an issue to https://github.com/parcel-bundler/watcher.`);

            ^



Error: No prebuild or local build of @parcel/watcher found. Tried @parcel/watcher-darwin-x64. Please ensure it is installed (don't use --no-optional when installing with npm). Otherwise it is possible we don't support your platform yet. If this is the case, please report an issue to 
.

    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/dirkceuppens/documents/sites/recepten/node_modules/@parcel/watcher/index.js:27:13)

    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1804:14)

    at Object..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1936:10)

    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1525:32)

    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1327:12)

    at TracingChannel.traceSync (node:diagnostics_channel:328:14)

    at wrapModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:245:24)

    at loadCJSModuleWithModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/esm/translators:339:3)

    at ModuleWrap.<anonymous> (node:internal/modules/esm/translators:242:7)

    at ModuleJob.run (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:430:25)



Node.js v24.13.1
2

I am unable to reproduce the behavior as described. Try it:

git clone --single-branch -b hugo-forum-topic-56733 https://github.com/jmooring/hugo-testing hugo-forum-topic-56733
cd hugo-forum-topic-56733
npm ci
hugo build --logLevel info

Console log:

Start building sites … 
hugo v0.156.0-9d914726dee87b0e8e3d7890d660221bde372eec+extended linux/amd64 BuildDate=2026-02-18T16:39:55Z VendorInfo=gohugoio

INFO  build:  step process substep collect files 1 files_total 1 pagesources_total 1 resourcesources_total 0 duration 152.732µs
INFO  build:  step process duration 275.32µs
INFO  static: syncing static files to / duration 338.35µs
INFO  build:  step assemble duration 359.09µs
INFO  build:  step render substep pages site en outputFormat html duration 1.010567ms
INFO  build:  step render substep pages site en outputFormat rss duration 931.114µs
INFO  build:  step render pages 7 content 3 duration 2.206397ms
INFO  exec: resolve "tailwindcss" using node_modules/.bin
INFO  tailwindcss: ≈ tailwindcss v4.2.0
INFO  tailwindcss: 
INFO  tailwindcss: Done in 102ms
INFO  build:  step render deferred count 3 duration 268.280962ms
INFO  build:  step postProcess duration 43.986µs
INFO  build:  duration 271.914468ms

Version check:

$ node -v
v24.11.1

$ npm -v
11.8.0

The hugo server command works fine too.

Tested on macOS too:

hugo v0.156.0-9d914726dee87b0e8e3d7890d660221bde372eec+extended darwin/arm64 BuildDate=2026-02-18T16:39:55Z VendorInfo=gohugoio

No errors.

3

just to add to what @jmooring said — this is almost certainly an architecture mismatch in your node_modules rather than a Hugo issue itself.

your build info shows darwin/amd64 which means the Hugo binary you have installed is the Intel build running under Rosetta. npm sees that architecture and installs @parcel/watcher-darwin-x64 to match. but your actual hardware is arm64, so when parcel tries to load the native binary it chokes.

two ways to fix it:

  1. reinstall Hugo as the native arm64 build — if you installed via Homebrew, check with file $(which hugo). if it says x86_64, you are running the Rosetta version. uninstall and reinstall Homebrew natively (or grab the darwin-arm64 tarball from the GitHub releases page). then wipe node_modules and reinstall.

  2. force the correct parcel watcher binary without changing Hugo:

rm -rf node_modules
npm install @parcel/watcher-darwin-arm64 --save-optional
npm install

the first approach is cleaner because it fixes the root cause — everything downstream (npm, parcel, esbuild) will then detect arm64 correctly. the second is a quick patch if you cannot switch Hugo builds for some reason.

worth checking your Node.js binary too — node -p process.arch should return arm64. if it returns x64 then Node itself is also running under Rosetta and you will keep hitting this with other native modules.

4

Homebrew was indeed the culprit, it was running on the Rosetta version - deleting and installing the correct version and doing the same for Hugo solved the issue. Thanks for your help, both of you!