Activiti/Activiti · error · ActivitiIllegalArgumentException

identityIdType allowed values are 1 and 2

Error message

identityIdType allowed values are 1 and 2

What it means

validateParams() last check: identityIdType must be exactly IDENTITY_USER (1) or IDENTITY_GROUP (2). Any other int (typically 0 from an uninitialized field or an out-of-range value) triggers ActivitiIllegalArgumentException. This API is an older integer-typed variant kept alongside the string IdentityLinkType overloads.

Solutions

1. Pass only IDENTITY_USER (1) or IDENTITY_GROUP (2) constants from the class, never raw literals.
2. Prefer the string-based overloads (taskService.addUserIdentityLink / addGroupIdentityLink) which avoid the int typing entirely.
3. Validate/mapping-lookup the int before calling; reject unknown role names at configuration load time.
4. Fix default initialization so the field defaults to a valid code rather than 0.

Example fix

// before
int identityIdType = 0; // defaults to 0 -> rejected
// after
int identityIdType = isGroup ? AddIdentityLinkCmd.IDENTITY_GROUP : AddIdentityLinkCmd.IDENTITY_USER;

if (identityIdType != IDENTITY_USER && identityIdType != IDENTITY_GROUP) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("identityIdType must be 1 (user) or 2 (group)");
}

try {
    taskService.addIdentityLink(taskId, identityId, identityIdType, identityType);
} catch (ActivitiIllegalArgumentException e) {
    log.error("identityIdType must be 1 or 2", e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the int-based addIdentityLink variant (taskService.addIdentityLink-like overloads taking an int) with 0, 3, or any value other than 1 or 2 — commonly an unset field defaulting to 0.

Common situations: Hand-maintained mappings converting user/group roles to ints with no default; values loaded from external config where 'user'/'group' strings weren't recognized; legacy integrations using wrong numeric codes.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• identityId is null
• processInstanceId is null
• type is required when adding a new task identity link
• type is required when deleting a process identity link
• userId and groupId cannot both be null

AI-assisted analysis of Activiti/Activiti@56435b1a97 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ce4d0adb78b81b40. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at activiti-core/activiti-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/cmd/AddIdentityLinkCmd.java:78

    protected void validateParams(String taskId, String identityId, int identityIdType, String identityType) {
        if (taskId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("taskId is null");
        }

        if (identityType == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("type is required when adding a new task identity link");
        }

        if (
            identityId == null &&
            (identityIdType == IDENTITY_GROUP ||
                (!IdentityLinkType.ASSIGNEE.equals(identityType) && !IdentityLinkType.OWNER.equals(identityType)))
        ) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("identityId is null");
        }

        if (identityIdType != IDENTITY_USER && identityIdType != IDENTITY_GROUP) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("identityIdType allowed values are 1 and 2");
        }
    }

    protected Void execute(CommandContext commandContext, TaskEntity task) {
        boolean assignedToNoOne = false;
        if (IdentityLinkType.ASSIGNEE.equals(identityType)) {
            commandContext.getTaskEntityManager().changeTaskAssignee(task, identityId);
            assignedToNoOne = identityId == null;
        } else if (IdentityLinkType.OWNER.equals(identityType)) {
            commandContext.getTaskEntityManager().changeTaskOwner(task, identityId);
        } else if (IDENTITY_USER == identityIdType) {
            task.addUserIdentityLink(identityId, identityType, details);
        } else if (IDENTITY_GROUP == identityIdType) {
            task.addGroupIdentityLink(identityId, identityType);
        }

        boolean forceNullUserId = false;
        if (assignedToNoOne) {

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