affaan-m/ECC · error · ValueError

invalid JSON artifact

Error message

invalid JSON artifact

What it means

_load_json wraps json.loads and a canonicalization pass; if parsing raises UnicodeError (invalid UTF-8/escape sequences) or RecursionError (nesting beyond the interpreter limit), it re-raises as "invalid JSON artifact". It signals bytes that cannot be decoded as safe, bounded JSON.

Solutions

1. Re-encode the file as UTF-8 without BOM (`iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 in.json > out.json`).
2. Validate the file with `python -m json.tool file.json` to see the exact decode error.
3. Check for accidental binary content (`file snapshot.json` should say 'JSON' or 'ASCII text').
4. Flatten or split pathologically nested JSON (depth > ~1000) before loading.

Example fix

// before
$ file snapshot.json -> data (UTF-16)

// after
$ iconv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 snapshot.json > snapshot.utf8.json

def check_decodable(path):
    raw = open(path, "rb").read()
    try:
        raw.decode("utf-8")
    except UnicodeDecodeError as e:
        raise ValueError(f"{path}: not UTF-8: {e}")

try:
    request = load_application_request(path)
except ValueError as exc:
    if "invalid JSON artifact" in str(exc):
        print(f"{path}: re-encode as UTF-8 and validate with python -m json.tool")
    raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling load_application_request or any _artifact(..., parse_json=True) path where the file contains invalid UTF-8 bytes, malformed \u escapes, or JSON nested deeper than Python's recursion limit (~1000 levels).

Common situations: Files saved with a non-UTF-8 encoding (UTF-16, Latin-1); binary files accidentally given a .json extension; truncated downloads; machine-generated deeply nested JSON.

Understand the failure class

Background: JSON parse error: "Unexpected token" / "not valid JSON" / "failed to parse" — what JSON parsers are really complaining about — this error's family across 45 libraries.

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• Invalid
• application request must be a JSON object
• approved text must be valid UTF-8 text
• bundle values must be finite JSON data
• candidate configuration exceeds 1 MiB

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/84a5fb7e13575a13. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at skills/taste-application/scripts/tasteforge/integration.py:184

        raise ValueError("application request must be a JSON object")
    return value


def _load_json(data: bytes) -> Any:
    def unique(pairs):
        result = {}
        for key, value in pairs:
            if key in result:
                raise ValueError("duplicate JSON field")
            result[key] = value
        return result

    try:
        value = json.loads(data, object_pairs_hook=unique)
        _canonical(value)
        return value
    except (UnicodeError, RecursionError) as exc:
        raise ValueError("invalid JSON artifact") from exc


def _snapshot(baseline: dict) -> dict:
    _object(baseline, {"project_file", "snapshot_file", "project_name", "timeline_name",
                       "fps", "timeline_range"})
    _rate(baseline["fps"])
    bounds = _range(baseline["timeline_range"])
    _artifact(baseline["project_file"])
    snapshot = _artifact(baseline["snapshot_file"], parse_json=True)
    if not isinstance(snapshot, dict):
        raise ValueError("native snapshot must be an object")
    settings = snapshot.get("settings")
    native_fps = settings.get("timelineFrameRate") if isinstance(settings, dict) else None
    # Resolve's conventional decimal NTSC labels represent these exact rates.
    ntsc = {"23.976": "24000/1001", "29.97": "30000/1001", "59.94": "60000/1001"}
    try:
        if type(native_fps) not in (str, int, float):
            raise ValueError("native fps missing")

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