affaan-m/ECC · warning · Error

memory search query is too long (maximum ${MAX_QUERY_CHARS}

Error message

memory search query is too long (maximum ${MAX_QUERY_CHARS} characters).

What it means

searchMemories trims and then length-checks the query against MAX_QUERY_CHARS (500). Queries above that cap are rejected before any scanning or scoring runs, because the search tokenizes and lowercases the query and walks every memory — unbounded query length would blow up CPU and memory. The cap is a deliberate throughput floor.

Source

Thrown at scripts/lib/memory-vault.js:593

    if (index < 0) return best;
    return best < 0 ? index : Math.min(best, index);
  }, -1);
  const start = Math.max(0, (matchIndex < 0 ? 0 : matchIndex) - 60);
  const prefix = start > 0 ? '…' : '';
  const suffix = start + maxChars < normalized.length ? '…' : '';
  return `${prefix}${normalized.slice(start, start + maxChars)}${suffix}`;
}

function summarizeMemory(memory) {
  return Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(memory).filter(([key]) => key !== 'body')
  );
}

function searchMemories(query, options = {}) {
  const normalizedQuery = typeof query === 'string' ? query.trim() : '';
  if (normalizedQuery.length > MAX_QUERY_CHARS) {
    throw new Error(`memory search query is too long (maximum ${MAX_QUERY_CHARS} characters).`);
  }
  if (hasUnsafeControlCharacters(normalizedQuery)) {
    throw new Error('memory search query must not contain control characters.');
  }

  const kinds = options.kinds
    ? uniqueStrings(options.kinds, {
      label: 'kinds',
      limit: MEMORY_KINDS.length,
      validator: value => validateEnum(value, MEMORY_KINDS, 'memory kind'),
    })
    : null;
  const trust = options.trust
    ? validateEnum(options.trust, MEMORY_TRUST_STATES, 'memory trust')
    : null;
  const targetHarness = options.targetHarness
    ? validateSlug(options.targetHarness, 'target harness')
    : null;

View on GitHub (pinned to 01e15490f0)

Solutions

1. Shorten the query to its most distinctive few keywords (search is tokenized, so 5–10 terms work better than a long paragraph anyway).
2. If you are searching for a long phrase, extract the most unique substring (<= 500 chars) and use that.
3. If you actually want to find a document by its full content, scan the vault with readMemoryFiles and match client-side instead of using searchMemories.
4. Trim and slice the query before calling: query.trim().slice(0, 500).

Example fix

// before
const results = searchMemories(hugeErrorLogString); // > 500 chars
// after
const results = searchMemories(hugeErrorLogString.trim().slice(0, 500));
// or better: extract the distinctive token
const results = searchMemories('ECC_MEMORY_LOCATION_MISMATCH');

const { MAX_QUERY_CHARS } = require('./scripts/lib/memory-vault');
function assertQueryLength(query) {
  const q = String(query || '').trim();
  if (q.length > MAX_QUERY_CHARS) {
    throw new Error(`memory search query is too long (maximum ${MAX_QUERY_CHARS} characters).`);
  }
  return q;
}
// before searchMemories:
const q = assertQueryLength(rawQuery);

try { searchMemories(query); }
catch (error) {
  if (/query is too long/i.test(error.message)) {
    return searchMemories(query.trim().slice(0, MAX_QUERY_CHARS));
  }
  throw error;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling searchMemories with a string query whose trimmed length exceeds 500 characters. The trim happens first, so leading/trailing whitespace is not counted, but interior length is.

Common situations: Pasting an entire error log or file contents as the query; programmatically concatenating many terms; a UI that submits the whole document body as a search; a misrouted argument that passes a memory body where a query was expected.

Related errors

• ${label} is too large (${opened.size} bytes).
• memory search query must not contain control characters.
• Memory ${memoryId} was not found.
• Consult requires a natural language query, for example: secu
• ${label} must be a non-empty string.

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@01e15490f0 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/80ff04ca385cda5b. Report an issue: GitHub.