alibaba/spring-ai-alibaba · error · IllegalStateException

Skill name is required

Error message

Skill name is required

What it means

SkillMetadata's builder enforces required fields at build() time: name, description, and skillPath must be non-null and non-empty. A missing name aborts construction with IllegalStateException, since a skill without a name is unidentifiable and unusable by the skill registry.

Solutions

1. Call .name("...") with a non-empty value on the builder before build()
2. If the name originates from frontmatter/config, validate it is present before constructing SkillMetadata
3. Provide a default/derived name (e.g. from the skill directory name) when the source is missing
4. Add a startup check that iterates skill definitions and fails fast with a clear message when name is blank

Example fix

// before
SkillMetadata meta = SkillMetadata.builder().description("d").skillPath("skills/x").build();
// after
SkillMetadata meta = SkillMetadata.builder().name("x").description("d").skillPath("skills/x").build();

if (name == null || name.isBlank()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Skill name is required");

boolean canBuildSkill(String name, String description, String path) {
    return name != null && !name.isEmpty() && description != null && !description.isEmpty() && path != null && !path.isEmpty();
}

SkillMetadata skill;
try { skill = builder.build(); } catch (IllegalStateException e) { if (e.getMessage().contains("Skill name is required")) { skill = builder.name(deriveNameFromPath()).build(); } else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling SkillMetadata.builder()...build() without invoking .name(...), or passing null/empty string to name().

Common situations: Programmatic skill construction where the name comes from parsed frontmatter or config that was empty; refactors dropping the name() call; YAML/JSON skill definitions missing the name key.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• AgentCard or AgentCardProvider must be provided
• At least one fallback model must be specified
• At least one sub-agent must be provided for flow
• Description must be provided
• initialDelay must be greater than or equal to 0.

AI-assisted analysis of alibaba/spring-ai-alibaba@f82da0b50f (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eae7bf99a5176e7b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at spring-ai-alibaba-graph-core/src/main/java/com/alibaba/cloud/ai/graph/skills/SkillMetadata.java:166

		public Builder source(String source) {
			metadata.source = source;
			return this;
		}

		public Builder fullContent(String fullContent) {
			metadata.fullContent = fullContent;
			return this;
		}

		public Builder allowedTools(List<String> allowedTools) {
			metadata.allowedTools = allowedTools == null ? List.of() : List.copyOf(allowedTools);
			return this;
		}

		public SkillMetadata build() {
			if (metadata.name == null || metadata.name.isEmpty()) {
				throw new IllegalStateException("Skill name is required");
			}
			if (metadata.description == null || metadata.description.isEmpty()) {
				throw new IllegalStateException("Skill description is required");
			}
			if (metadata.skillPath == null || metadata.skillPath.isEmpty()) {
				throw new IllegalStateException("Skill path is required");
			}
			if (metadata.allowedTools == null) {
				metadata.allowedTools = List.of();
			}
			return metadata;
		}
	}
}

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