FiloSottile/age · error

not a plugin recipient: %v

Error message

not a plugin recipient: %v

What it means

If the string decodes as bech32 but its human-readable part does not start with 'age1', it is not an age/plugin recipient. ParseRecipient rejects it so callers do not misinterpret unrelated bech32 strings (e.g. nostr npub, lightning invoices) as plugin recipients.

Source

Thrown at plugin/encode.go:63

// EncodeRecipient encodes a plugin recipient string for a plugin with the given
// name. If the name is invalid, it returns an empty string.
func EncodeRecipient(name string, data []byte) string {
	if !validPluginName(name) {
		return ""
	}
	s, _ := bech32.Encode("age1"+strings.ToLower(name), data)
	return s
}

// ParseRecipient decodes a plugin recipient string. It returns the plugin name
// in lowercase and the encoded data.
func ParseRecipient(s string) (name string, data []byte, err error) {
	hrp, data, err := bech32.Decode(s)
	if err != nil {
		return "", nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid recipient encoding: %v", err)
	}
	if !strings.HasPrefix(hrp, "age1") {
		return "", nil, fmt.Errorf("not a plugin recipient: %v", err)
	}
	name = strings.TrimPrefix(hrp, "age1")
	if !validPluginName(name) {
		return "", nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid plugin name: %q", name)
	}
	return name, data, nil
}

func validPluginName(name string) bool {
	if name == "" {
		return false
	}
	allowed := "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789+-._"
	for _, r := range name {
		if !strings.ContainsRune(allowed, r) {
			return false
		}
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to b74dce4cdb)

Solutions

1. Check the string starts with 'age1' before calling ParseRecipient.
2. If it starts with AGE-PLUGIN- or AGE-SECRET-KEY-, use the identity parser or native identity handling instead.
3. Ask the user for the recipient (age1...) not the identity.
4. Route parsing by prefix in dispatch code.

Example fix

// before
name, data, err := plugin.ParseRecipient(idString)
// after
if strings.HasPrefix(idString, "AGE-") { /* it's an identity, not a recipient */ }
name, data, err := plugin.ParseRecipient("age1frood1qqq...")

if !strings.HasPrefix(s, "age1") { return fmt.Errorf("%q is not an age recipient", s) }

func isRecipientString(s string) bool { return strings.HasPrefix(strings.TrimSpace(s), "age1") }

name, data, err := plugin.ParseRecipient(s)
if err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "not a plugin recipient") { return fmt.Errorf("expected age1... recipient, got %q", s) }
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: ParseRecipient called with a bech32 string like 'npub1...', 'lnbc1...', 'AGE-PLUGIN-...-1...' (identity, not recipient), or 'AGE-SECRET-KEY-...'.

Common situations: Wrong variable passed (identity instead of recipient); integrating other bech32 ecosystems and mixing strings; users pasting plugin identity lines where a recipient was requested.

Related errors

• not a plugin identity: %v
• invalid recipient encoding: %v
• malformed recipient %q: %v
• malformed confirm stanza: invalid YES option encoding
• malformed confirm stanza: invalid NO option encoding

AI-assisted analysis of FiloSottile/age@b74dce4cdb (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/92e7c6ea5e156a16. Report an issue: GitHub.