Install module has invalid targets; expected an array of…

Error message

Install module ${moduleId} has invalid targets; expected an array of supported target ids

What it means

readModuleTargetsOrThrow throws when an install module's `targets` property is not an array. The faulting input is the module object in the install-modules manifest; the schema expects an array of supported target ids (e.g. 'claude', 'codex', 'cursor').

Solutions

Fix the module entry so targets is an array of valid target ids.
Validate manifests against schemas/install-modules.schema.json before loading.
Regenerate the manifest if it is produced by tooling.

Example fix

// before
{ "id": "agents", "targets": "claude" }
// after
{ "id": "agents", "targets": ["claude", "codex", "cursor"] }

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const TARGETS = new Set(['claude','codex','cursor']);
function validateModule(m) { if (!Array.isArray(m.targets) || m.targets.some(t => !TARGETS.has(String(t).trim()))) throw new Error(`module ${m.id} has invalid targets`); }

Type guard

const hasValidTargets = (m) => Array.isArray(m?.targets) && m.targets.every(t => typeof t === 'string' && t.trim());

Try / catch

try { loadInstallManifests(opts); } catch (e) { if (e.message.includes('has invalid targets')) { console.error('Fix the module targets array in the manifest:', e.message); } else throw e; }

Prevention

Validate module manifests against the schema before loading
Always declare targets as a string array when adding modules
Lint manifests in CI to catch schema drift

When it happens

Trigger: Loading install manifests where a module definition has targets missing, set to a string/object/null, or an array containing unsupported non-string entries that fail normalization.

Common situations: Hand-editing a module manifest and dropping or mistyping `targets`; adding a new module without declaring targets; schema change where targets became an object map.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4427bbe3af5f54b4. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at scripts/lib/install-manifests.js:251

    || options[key] === null
    || options[key] === undefined
  ) {
    return null;
  }

  if (typeof options[key] !== 'string' || options[key].trim() === '') {
    throw new Error(`${key} must be a non-empty string when provided`);
  }

  return options[key];
}

function readModuleTargetsOrThrow(module) {
  const moduleId = module && module.id ? module.id : '<unknown>';
  const targets = module && module.targets;

  if (!Array.isArray(targets)) {
    throw new Error(`Install module ${moduleId} has invalid targets; expected an array of supported target ids`);
  }

  const normalizedTargets = targets.map(target => (
    typeof target === 'string' ? target.trim() : ''
  ));

  if (normalizedTargets.some(target => target.length === 0)) {
    throw new Error(`Install module ${moduleId} has invalid targets; expected an array of supported target ids`);
  }

  const unsupportedTargets = normalizedTargets.filter(target => !SUPPORTED_INSTALL_TARGETS.includes(target));
  if (unsupportedTargets.length > 0) {
    throw new Error(
      `Install module ${moduleId} has unsupported targets: ${unsupportedTargets.join(', ')}`
    );
  }

  return normalizedTargets;

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