bytedance/deer-flow · error · ValueError

fact.status must be 'active'; deletion is physical

Error message

fact.status must be 'active'; deletion is physical

What it means

The v2 storage schema has no soft-delete: fact['status'] must be exactly 'active' (the default), and anything else raises ValueError with 'deletion is physical'. Facts are removed by deleting their records; a status field carrying 'deleted'/'archived' indicates an old or wrong producer.

Source

Thrown at backend/packages/harness/deerflow/agents/memory/backends/deermem/deermem/core/storage.py:205

    normalized = copy.deepcopy(fact)
    normalized["id"] = str(normalized.get("id") or f"fact_{uuid.uuid4().hex}")
    # Validate the id through the canonical path builder's public contract.
    if not normalized["id"] or any(character not in "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_-" for character in normalized["id"]):
        raise ValueError("fact.id may contain only letters, numbers, '_' and '-'")
    normalized["schemaVersion"] = 2
    if not isinstance(normalized.get("content"), str):
        raise ValueError("fact.content must be a string")
    normalized["content"] = normalized["content"].strip()
    if not normalized["content"]:
        raise ValueError("fact.content must not be empty")
    _normalize_category(normalized)
    confidence = normalized.get("confidence", 0.5)
    if isinstance(confidence, bool) or not isinstance(confidence, (int, float)) or not 0 <= confidence <= 1:
        raise ValueError("fact.confidence must be a number between 0 and 1")
    normalized["confidence"] = float(confidence)
    status = normalized.get("status", "active")
    if status != "active":
        raise ValueError("fact.status must be 'active'; deletion is physical")
    normalized["status"] = "active"
    normalized["scope"] = copy.deepcopy(scope)
    _require_string_list(normalized, "topics")
    _require_string_list(normalized, "consolidatedFrom")
    revision = normalized.get("revision", 1)
    if isinstance(revision, bool) or not isinstance(revision, int) or revision < 1:
        raise ValueError("fact.revision must be an integer >= 1")
    source = normalized.get("source")
    if isinstance(source, str):
        if source in {"manual", "consolidation", "import", "unknown"}:
            normalized["source"] = {"type": source, "threadId": None}
        else:
            normalized["source"] = {"type": "conversation", "threadId": source}
    elif not isinstance(source, dict):
        normalized["source"] = {"type": "unknown", "threadId": None}
    else:
        normalized["source"].setdefault("type", "unknown")
        if not isinstance(normalized["source"].get("type"), str):

View on GitHub (pinned to 1dd6ba1acb)

Solutions

1. Remove the status key (or set it to 'active') for facts you intend to store; use the backend's delete/remove API to delete, which physically removes the record.
2. In migration code, filter out facts with non-active status instead of importing them.
3. If you need archiving, model it with a category or custom field, not status.

Example fix

# before
memory.save_fact({"content": "...", "status": "archived"})
# after
memory.save_fact({"content": "..."})  # status defaults to 'active'; use memory.delete_fact(id) to remove

status = fact.get("status", "active")
if status != "active":
    if status in {"deleted", "archived", "inactive"}:
        return  # drop soft-deleted facts on import; deletion here is physical
    fact["status"] = "active"

def is_active_status(fact: dict) -> bool:
    return fact.get("status", "active") == "active"

When it happens

Trigger: Saving {'status': 'deleted'}, {'status': 'inactive'}, or forwarding v1 facts whose status was set to soft-deleted during an export/migration that skipped the physical delete.

Common situations: Porting data from a system with soft deletes; an LLM or script 'deleting' a fact by flipping status instead of calling the delete API.

Related errors

• retrieval fact.id must be a non-empty string
• retrieval fact.content must be a non-empty string
• unsupported FTS5 retrieval mode: {mode}
• retrieval category filter must be a string
• fact.category must be a string

AI-assisted analysis of bytedance/deer-flow@1dd6ba1acb (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/66a5742ec71f69ca. Report an issue: GitHub.