alibaba/open-code-review · error

max_review_rounds must not be negative

Error message

max_review_rounds must not be negative

What it means

Template.Validate allows MaxReviewRounds == 0 (review disabled) but rejects negative values with 'max_review_rounds must not be negative', since a negative round count is meaningless and would corrupt loop logic. It indicates an arithmetic bug or bad manifest data rather than a missing field.

Source

Thrown at internal/config/template/template.go:320

	}
	if t.DedupTask != nil {
		applyLanguage(t.DedupTask, instruction)
	}
	if t.ProjectSummaryTask != nil {
		applyLanguage(t.ProjectSummaryTask, instruction)
	}
	applyLanguage(&t.MemoryCompressionTask, instruction)
}

func (t *Template) Validate() error {
	if t.MaxTokens <= 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("max_tokens must be positive")
	}
	if t.MaxToolRequestTimes <= 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("max_tool_request_times must be positive")
	}
	if t.MaxReviewRounds < 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("max_review_rounds must not be negative")
	}
	if len(t.MainTask.Messages) == 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("main_task.messages must not be empty")
	}
	return nil
}

// Validate checks that a ScanTemplate has the minimum fields populated.
func (t *ScanTemplate) Validate() error {
	if t.MaxTokens <= 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("scan: max_tokens must be positive")
	}
	if t.MaxToolRequestTimes <= 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("scan: max_tool_request_times must be positive")
	}
	if len(t.MainTask.Messages) == 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("scan: main_task.messages must not be empty")
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5cf97d0d15)

Solutions

1. Set MaxReviewRounds to 0 to disable review rounds, or a positive number to enable them
2. Fix the manifest/config source so MAX_REVIEW_ROUNDS is never negative; clamp user input with max(0, value)
3. Check for arithmetic that can go negative when deriving the value from other settings
4. Re-run Validate after correction; the check passes for any value >= 0

Example fix

// before
rounds := cfg.BaseRounds - cfg.SkippedRounds // can go negative
// after
rounds := cfg.BaseRounds - cfg.SkippedRounds
if rounds < 0 { rounds = 0 }

if tpl.MaxReviewRounds < 0 {
	return fmt.Errorf("MaxReviewRounds must be >= 0, got %d", tpl.MaxReviewRounds)
}
if err := tpl.Validate(); err != nil { return err }

if err := tpl.Validate(); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "max_review_rounds must not be negative") {
		tpl.MaxReviewRounds = 0 // treat negatives as 'review disabled'
		err = tpl.Validate()
	}
	if err != nil { return err }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling (*Template).Validate() with t.MaxReviewRounds < 0 — e.g. "MAX_REVIEW_ROUNDS": -1 in task_template.json, a subtraction underflow when computing rounds from other config, or user-supplied config clamped incorrectly.

Common situations: A config UI allowing negative input for review rounds; code like MaxReviewRounds: base - extra that underflows; copy-pasting a template with -1 as a sentinel for 'off' (use 0 instead).

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

• invalid max_tokens in app config: must be a positive integer
• invalid config: %w
• unsupported extension %q, only .md/.txt/.markdown allowed
• invalid effort %q: must be one of %s
• max_tokens must be positive

AI-assisted analysis of alibaba/open-code-review@5cf97d0d15 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5be18c51a3304c1d. Report an issue: GitHub.