In the generated template config file, the "author" section looks like this: author: - name: '[OPTIONAL]' email: '[OPTIONAL]' However, if you leave this as is, json marshalling fails on assembly: Error: json: error calling MarshalJSON for type common.Creator: unexpected end of JSON input Removing the author section or filling in the name solves the issue. Expected behaviour: Since sbomasm handles other config file properties with the default placeholder gracefully, it should do the same for author name.