apache/superset · error · ExtensionNameError

Display name must start with a letter and can contain letter

Error message

Display name must start with a letter and can contain letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, underscores, and dots (e.g., 'Dashboard Widgets')

What it means

Thrown by validate_display_name() when the normalized display name fails DISPLAY_NAME_REGEX. A valid display name must start with a letter and may then contain letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, underscores, and dots — so input beginning with a digit, or containing punctuation like '!', '@', '#', parentheses, or quotes, is rejected. The name is whitespace-normalized (stripped, internal runs collapsed) before the regex runs.

Source

Thrown at superset-extensions-cli/src/superset_extensions_cli/utils.py:277

    Validate and normalize display name format.

    Args:
        display_name: Human-readable extension name

    Returns:
        Cleaned display name

    Raises:
        ExtensionNameError: If display name is invalid
    """
    if not display_name or not display_name.strip():
        raise ExtensionNameError("Display name cannot be empty")

    # Normalize whitespace: strip and collapse multiple spaces
    normalized = " ".join(display_name.strip().split())

    if not DISPLAY_NAME_REGEX.match(normalized):
        raise ExtensionNameError(
            "Display name must start with a letter and can contain letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, underscores, and dots (e.g., 'Dashboard Widgets')"
        )

    # Check for only whitespace/special chars after normalization
    if not any(c.isalnum() for c in normalized):
        raise ExtensionNameError(
            "Display name must contain at least one letter or number"
        )

    return normalized


def suggest_technical_name(display_name: str) -> str:
    """
    Suggest technical name from display name.

    Args:
        display_name: Human-readable name (e.g., "Dashboard Widgets!")

View on GitHub (pinned to f4587218dd)

Solutions

1. Strip unsupported punctuation and start with a letter: 'Dashboard Widgets' instead of 'Dashboard Widgets!'.
2. If you want richer text, keep punctuation out of the display name and put it in descriptions/README where it is free-form.
3. For numbers, move them after the first word ('Helper 2' not '2 Helper') if the leading character is the only problem.

Example fix

# before
superset-extensions create my-org dashboard-widgets --display-name "Dashboard Widgets!"

# after
superset-extensions create my-org dashboard-widgets --display-name "Dashboard Widgets"

import re
DISPLAY_RE = re.compile(r"^[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9 _.-]*$")
normalized = " ".join(display_name.strip().split())
if not DISPLAY_RE.match(normalized):
    normalized = re.sub(r"[^A-Za-z0-9 _.-]+", "", normalized)

When it happens

Trigger: Passing display names like '1Dashboard' (leading digit), 'Dashboard Widgets!' (exclamation mark), "Superset (charts)" (parentheses), '#1 Widgets' (leading '#'), or any name with emoji/unicode punctuation. Raised from the CLI create/validate commands or a direct validate_display_name() call.

Common situations: Marketing-style names with taglines or exclamation points ('Widgets!'), names prefixed with a version or number ('2FA Helper'), localized names with non-Latin punctuation, or names copied from documents carrying smart quotes.

Related errors

• Publisher must start with a letter and contain only lowercas
• Extension name must start with a letter and contain only low
• Extension name cannot be empty
• Display name cannot be empty
• Display name must contain at least one letter or number

AI-assisted analysis of apache/superset@f4587218dd (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f260fef47f3f179c. Report an issue: GitHub.