--- a/cmds/fleet/Cargo.toml
+++ b/cmds/fleet/Cargo.toml
@@ -49,6 +49,7 @@
 fleet-base = { version = "0.1.0", path = "../../crates/fleet-base" }
 
 [features]
+default = ["indicatif"]
 # Not quite stable
 indicatif = [
 	"dep:tracing-indicatif",
--- a/cmds/fleet/src/main.rs
+++ b/cmds/fleet/src/main.rs
@@ -185,10 +185,6 @@
 #[tokio::main]
 async fn async_main(opts: RootOpts) -> ExitCode {
 	if let Err(e) = main_real(opts).await {
-		// If I remove this line, the next error!() line gets eaten.
-		// This is a bug in indicatif, it needs to be fixed
-		#[cfg(feature = "indicatif")]
-		info!("fixme: this line gets eaten by tracing-indicatif on levels info+");
 		error!("{e:#}");
 		return ExitCode::FAILURE;
 	}
--- a/crates/fleet-base/src/opts.rs
+++ b/crates/fleet-base/src/opts.rs
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 	sync::{Arc, Mutex},
 };
 
-use anyhow::Result;
+use anyhow::{Context, Result};
 use clap::Parser;
 use nix_eval::{nix_go, util::assert_warn, NixSessionPool, Value};
 use nom::{
@@ -196,7 +196,8 @@
 
 		let mut fleet_data_path = directory.clone();
 		fleet_data_path.push("fleet.nix");
-		let bytes = std::fs::read_to_string(fleet_data_path)?;
+		let bytes =
+			std::fs::read_to_string(fleet_data_path).context("reading fleet state (fleet.nix)")?;
 		let data: Mutex<FleetData> = nixlike::parse_str(&bytes)?;
 
 		let fleet_root = Value::binding(nix_session.clone(), "fleetConfigurations").await?;