Yes, at the moment if you run
./launcher bootstrap app
without first creating app.yml, you only see:
ERROR: containers/app.yml does not exist or is not readable.
That’s accurate but not very helpful, especially for two common cases:
- 
New production install 
 Should run./discourse-setupto generateapp.ymlfromstandalone.yml.
- 
Quick test forum without outbound email 
 Sometimes people just want to spin up a local/test Discourse without configuring SMTP.
 The usual workflow is:
./launcher bootstrap app
./launcher start app
./launcher enter app
rake admin:create
This gives you an admin account without needing email.
Proposal:
Improve the error message so it guides both paths. For example: