JuliusBrussee/caveman · error

recordOutcome: evidence keys must be non-empty

Error message

recordOutcome: evidence keys must be non-empty

What it means

After confirming evidence is a plain object, recordOutcome iterates its entries and requires each key to be non-blank after trimming. A key of '' or ' ' is rejected because it would produce a malformed ':value' reference string on the control API. This is per-entry validation, so the first blank key aborts the whole call.

Source

Thrown at packages/mastra/src/index.ts:656

 */
export async function recordOutcome(
  client: CavemanOutcomeClient,
  input: RecordOutcomeInput,
): Promise<RecordOutcomeResult> {
  const controlApiUrl = requireBaseUrl(client.controlApiUrl, "recordOutcome: controlApiUrl");
  const token = requireNonEmpty(client.token, "recordOutcome: token");
  const projectId = requireNonEmpty(client.projectId, "recordOutcome: projectId");
  const taskId = requireNonEmpty(input.taskId, "recordOutcome: taskId");
  const contract = requireNonEmpty(input.contract, "recordOutcome: contract");

  if (!isPlainObject(input.values) || Object.keys(input.values).length === 0) {
    throw new Error("recordOutcome: values must be a non-empty plain object");
  }
  if (!isPlainObject(input.evidence)) {
    throw new Error("recordOutcome: evidence must be a plain object");
  }
  const evidenceRefs = Object.entries(input.evidence).map(([key, value]) => {
    if (!key.trim()) throw new Error("recordOutcome: evidence keys must be non-empty");
    if (typeof value !== "string" && typeof value !== "number" && typeof value !== "boolean") {
      throw new Error(`recordOutcome: evidence.${key} must be a string, number, or boolean`);
    }
    if (typeof value === "number" && !Number.isFinite(value)) {
      throw new Error(`recordOutcome: evidence.${key} must be a finite number`);
    }
    const ref = `${key}:${String(value)}`;
    if (!ref.slice(key.length + 1)) throw new Error(`recordOutcome: evidence.${key} must be non-empty`);
    return ref;
  });
  if (evidenceRefs.length === 0) {
    throw new Error("recordOutcome: evidence must contain at least one reference");
  }
  if (evidenceRefs.length > MAX_EVIDENCE_REFS) {
    throw new Error(`recordOutcome: evidence must contain at most ${MAX_EVIDENCE_REFS} references`);
  }

  const confidence = input.confidence;

View on GitHub (pinned to 27d5a3981a)

Solutions

1. Give every evidence entry a real label: { commit: sha, tests: 12 }.
2. Filter/validate computed keys before the call: skip entries whose trimmed key is empty.
3. If the key source may be blank, default it (e.g. key.trim() || 'unnamed').

Example fix

// before
await recordOutcome(client, { taskId, contract, values, evidence: { [label]: sha } }); // label === ""
// after
const key = label.trim() || "ref";
await recordOutcome(client, { taskId, contract, values, evidence: { [key]: sha } });

function evidenceKeysValid(evidence: Record<string, unknown>): boolean {
  return Object.keys(evidence).every(k => k.trim().length > 0);
}

try {
  await recordOutcome(client, input);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message.includes("evidence keys must be non-empty")) {
    const cleaned = Object.fromEntries(Object.entries(input.evidence).filter(([k]) => k.trim()));
    return recordOutcome(client, { ...input, evidence: cleaned });
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: evidence: { '': 'x' } or evidence: { ' ': 1 }, commonly produced by computed keys like { [someVar]: val } where someVar is an empty/whitespace string.

Common situations: Building keys from variables (file names, step labels) that can be empty, parsing key/value pairs out of text where a separator produces an empty left side, or JSON payloads with "" keys round-tripped into evidence.

Related errors

• recordOutcome: values must be a non-empty plain object
• recordOutcome: evidence must be a plain object
• option not found
• cave_harness_adapter_version_invalid
• cavemanExporterConfig: protocol ${protocol} is not accepted

AI-assisted analysis of JuliusBrussee/caveman@27d5a3981a (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3a312f4dceaf0163. Report an issue: GitHub.