BerriAI/litellm · error · ValueError

BedrockGuardrail: 'checks' block contained only unrecognized

Error message

BedrockGuardrail: 'checks' block contained only unrecognized or empty keys {sorted(raw.keys())}. Known keys: {sorted(_BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS)}. Fix the guardrail config or remove the 'checks' block to use ApplyGuardrail mode.

What it means

Error "BedrockGuardrail: 'checks' block contained only unrecognized or empty keys {sorted(raw.keys())}. Known keys: {sorted(_BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS)}. Fix the guardrail config or remove the 'checks' block to use ApplyGuardrail mode." thrown in BerriAI/litellm.

Source

Thrown at litellm/proxy/guardrails/guardrail_hooks/bedrock_guardrails.py:311

        Accepts a pydantic ``BedrockChecksConfigModel`` or a raw dict; drops None /
        unknown keys. Returns None when no usable check is configured (=> ApplyGuardrail).
        """
        if checks is None:
            return None
        raw = checks.model_dump(exclude_none=True) if isinstance(checks, BedrockChecksConfigModel) else dict(checks)
        unknown_keys: Final = set(raw.keys()) - _BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS
        if unknown_keys:
            verbose_proxy_logger.warning(
                "BedrockGuardrail: unrecognized check key(s) %s will be ignored; "
                "recognized keys will still be used for InvokeGuardrailChecks. "
                "Known keys: %s.",
                sorted(unknown_keys),
                sorted(_BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS),
            )
        cleaned = {key: value for key, value in raw.items() if key in _BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS and value is not None}
        if not cleaned and raw:
            raise ValueError(
                f"BedrockGuardrail: 'checks' block contained only unrecognized or empty keys {sorted(raw.keys())}. "
                f"Known keys: {sorted(_BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS)}. "
                "Fix the guardrail config or remove the 'checks' block to use ApplyGuardrail mode."
            )
        return cleaned or None

    def _create_bedrock_input_content_request(self, messages: list[AllMessageValues] | None) -> BedrockRequest:
        """
        Create a bedrock request for the input content - the LLM request.
        """
        bedrock_request: Final[BedrockRequest] = BedrockRequest(source="INPUT")
        bedrock_request_content: Final[list[BedrockContentItem]] = []
        if messages is None:
            return bedrock_request
        for message in messages:
            blocks = self.get_content_items_for_message(message=message)
            if blocks is None:
                continue

View on GitHub (pinned to 77b7c6c40c)

Solutions

1. Fix the checks block to use the known check keys listed in the error, or remove the checks block.

Example fix

checks:
  content_filters: [...]  # use only keys from _BEDROCK_CHECKS_KNOWN_KEYS

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at litellm/proxy/guardrails/guardrail_hooks/bedrock_guardrails.py:311 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: The Bedrock checks block contains only unrecognized or empty keys.

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@77b7c6c40c (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/acf327ad66b7aed2. Report an issue: GitHub.