What causes "Invalid duration: '{s}'. Use format like '30m', '2h', or '1d'" in NousResearch/hermes-agent?

Use one integer + one unit: '30m', '2h', '1d' (long forms 'mins'/'hours'/'days' also accepted)

NousResearch/hermes-agent · warning · ValueError

Invalid duration: '{s}'. Use format like '30m', '2h', or '1d

Error message

Invalid duration: '{s}'. Use format like '30m', '2h', or '1d'

What it means

ValueError from parse_duration in cron/jobs.py: the string must fully match ^(\d+)\s*(m|min|...|h|hr|...|d|day|days)$ after lowercasing/stripping. Anything else — combined units ('1h30m'), '45', '0.5h', 'w' (weeks), or embedded text — fails. Returns minutes via multipliers m=1, h=60, d=1440.

Source

Thrown at cron/jobs.py:603


# =============================================================================
# Schedule Parsing
# =============================================================================

def parse_duration(s: str) -> int:
    """
    Parse duration string into minutes.
    
    Examples:
        "30m" → 30
        "2h" → 120
        "1d" → 1440
    """
    s = s.strip().lower()
    match = re.match(r'^(\d+)\s*(m|min|mins|minute|minutes|h|hr|hrs|hour|hours|d|day|days)$', s)
    if not match:
        raise ValueError(f"Invalid duration: '{s}'. Use format like '30m', '2h', or '1d'")
    
    value = int(match.group(1))
    unit = match.group(2)[0]  # First char: m, h, or d
    
    multipliers = {'m': 1, 'h': 60, 'd': 1440}
    return value * multipliers[unit]


def parse_schedule(schedule: str) -> Dict[str, Any]:
    """
    Parse schedule string into structured format.
    
    Returns dict with:
        - kind: "once" | "interval" | "cron"
        - For "once": "run_at" (ISO timestamp)
        - For "interval": "minutes" (int)
        - For "cron": "expr" (cron expression)

View on GitHub (pinned to c896c09c42)

Solutions

Use one integer + one unit: '30m', '2h', '1d' (long forms 'mins'/'hours'/'days' also accepted)
Convert weeks to days (7d) and compound durations to the smallest unit ('1h30m' -> '90m')
If a cron-style or timestamp schedule is wanted, pass a 5-field cron expression or ISO timestamp instead of a duration

Example fix

# before
create_job(schedule="1h30m", ...)
# ValueError: Invalid duration: '1h30m'. Use format like '30m', '2h', or '1d'

# after
create_job(schedule="90m", ...)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import re

_DURATION_RE = re.compile(r"^(\d+)\s*(m|min|mins|minute|minutes|h|hr|hrs|hour|hours|d|day|days)$")

def is_valid_duration(s: str) -> bool:
    return bool(_DURATION_RE.match(s.strip().lower()))

Try / catch

from cron.jobs import parse_duration

try:
    minutes = parse_duration(raw)
except ValueError:
    minutes = humanize_to_minutes(raw)  # '1h30m' -> 90, then submit f"{minutes}m"

Prevention

Submit one integer plus one unit only; convert compound durations to minutes first
Remember weeks are not supported — use '7d'
Validate in the UI with the same single-unit regex

When it happens

Trigger: create_job(schedule='1h30m'), schedule='90', schedule='2 hours 15m', or schedule='1w' — all miss the single integer + single unit regex.

Common situations: Users typing compound durations; omitting the unit; asking for weeks which the parser doesn't support; passing a raw number from a config file.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of NousResearch/hermes-agent@c896c09c42 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f9375230a16e8b6a. Report an issue: GitHub.