affaan-m/ECC · error

Context graph relation type cannot be empty

Error message

Context graph relation type cannot be empty

What it means

When linking two entities, the relation write path trims relation_type and rejects empties with `Context graph relation type cannot be empty`. The relation type labels the edge (e.g. "depends_on", "references") and is required for meaningful graph traversal.

Solutions

1. Pass a concrete relation type string for each edge creation site.
2. Map unknown analyzer kinds to an explicit "related" fallback instead of empty.
3. Trim/validate relation_type before calling; skip edges without a label.
4. Grep for relation-creation call sites to catch any passing a possibly-empty variable.

Example fix

// before
store.add_context_graph_relation(from_id, to_id, &edge_label, &summary)?;
// after
let rel = edge_label.trim();
if !rel.is_empty() {
    store.add_context_graph_relation(from_id, to_id, rel, &summary)?;
}

const rel = relationType.trim();
if (!rel) return; // unlabeled edge: skip
await api.addContextGraphRelation(fromId, toId, rel, summary);

function hasRelationType(v) { return typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0; }

try {
    store.add_context_graph_relation(from_id, to_id, &rel, &summary)?;
} catch (e) {
    if (String(e).includes('relation type cannot be empty')) {
        store.add_context_graph_relation(from_id, to_id, "related", &summary)?;
    } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the relation API with relation_type = "" or whitespace — commonly when the edge label comes from a mapping table or analyzer output that returned nothing.

Common situations: Dependency analyzers with unmapped relationship kinds; generic graph importers where the edge label column is blank; refactors that renamed a relation constant but left one call site defaulting to empty.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• Context graph entity name cannot be empty
• Context graph entity type cannot be empty
• Context graph observation summary cannot be empty
• Context graph observation type cannot be empty
• -32602

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cc36d3499860073e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at ecc2/src/session/store.rs:3673

        Ok(ContextGraphCompactionStats {
            entities_scanned,
            duplicate_observations_deleted,
            overflow_observations_deleted,
            observations_retained,
        })
    }

    pub fn upsert_context_relation(
        &self,
        session_id: Option<&str>,
        from_entity_id: i64,
        to_entity_id: i64,
        relation_type: &str,
        summary: &str,
    ) -> Result<ContextGraphRelation> {
        let relation_type = relation_type.trim();
        if relation_type.is_empty() {
            return Err(anyhow::anyhow!(
                "Context graph relation type cannot be empty"
            ));
        }
        let summary = summary.trim();
        let timestamp = chrono::Utc::now().to_rfc3339();

        self.conn.execute(
            "INSERT INTO context_graph_relations (
                session_id, from_entity_id, to_entity_id, relation_type, summary, created_at
             )
             VALUES (?1, ?2, ?3, ?4, ?5, ?6)
             ON CONFLICT(from_entity_id, to_entity_id, relation_type) DO UPDATE SET
                session_id = COALESCE(excluded.session_id, context_graph_relations.session_id),
                summary = CASE
                    WHEN excluded.summary <> '' THEN excluded.summary
                    ELSE context_graph_relations.summary
                END",
            rusqlite::params![

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