coleam00/Archon · error · Error

Workflow run has invalid effective model bindings.

Error message

Workflow run has invalid effective model bindings.

What it means

readRunModelBindingsMetadata also validates the 'effective' section of model_bindings metadata (the resolved bindings actually used for execution). If safeParse fails with a path rooted at 'effective', it throws this error. Effective bindings are recomputed-but-persisted state; if they are invalid, the run record is internally inconsistent and execution refuses to proceed rather than trusting corrupt data.

Source

Thrown at packages/workflows/src/model-validation.ts:510

  metadata: Record<string, unknown> | undefined
): RunModelBindingsMetadata | undefined {
  const value = metadata?.[RUN_MODEL_BINDINGS_METADATA_KEY];
  if (value === undefined) return undefined;
  const parsed = runModelBindingsMetadataSchema.safeParse(value);
  if (!parsed.success) {
    const path = parsed.error.issues[0]?.path ?? [];
    const bindingName = typeof path[2] === 'string' ? path[2] : 'unknown';
    if (path.includes('thinking')) {
      throw new Error(`Model binding '${bindingName}' has invalid thinking options.`);
    }
    if (path.includes('effort')) {
      throw new Error(`Model binding '${bindingName}' has an invalid effort.`);
    }
    if (path[0] === 'overrides' && (path[1] === 'tiers' || path[1] === 'aliases')) {
      throw new Error(`Workflow run has invalid model_bindings ${path[1]} metadata.`);
    }
    if (path[0] === 'effective') {
      throw new Error('Workflow run has invalid effective model bindings.');
    }
    throw new Error('Workflow run has invalid model_bindings metadata.');
  }

  const tiers = Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(parsed.data.overrides.tiers ?? {}).map(([name, preset]) => [
      name,
      normalizePersistedOverridePreset(name, preset),
    ])
  );
  const aliases = Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(parsed.data.overrides.aliases ?? {}).map(([name, preset]) => [
      name,
      normalizePersistedOverridePreset(name, preset),
    ])
  );
  for (const [name, preset] of Object.entries(parsed.data.effective.aliases)) {
    assertValidPersistedPreset(name, preset);

View on GitHub (pinned to 0773b97458)

Solutions

  1. Recompute and rewrite the effective bindings section (or delete the run and start a new one) so it matches the schema
  2. Resume from a run whose metadata was written by a compatible writer version
  3. Fix the writer that persists effective bindings to conform to runModelBindingsMetadataSchema

Example fix

// before
"effective": { "node1": "gpt-4o-mini" }
// after
"effective": { "node1": { "model": "gpt-4o-mini" } }
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

const parsed = runModelBindingsMetadataSchema.safeParse(metadata);
if (!parsed.success) {
  if (parsed.error.issues.some(i => i.path[0] === 'effective')) {
    throw new Error('Workflow run has invalid effective model bindings.');
  }
}

Type guard

function hasValidEffectiveBindings(m: { effective?: unknown }): boolean {
  return runModelBindingsMetadataSchema.pick({ effective: true }).safeParse({ effective: m.effective }).success;
}

Try / catch

try {
  await executeWorkflow(runId);
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof Error && err.message === 'Workflow run has invalid effective model bindings.') {
    console.error('Persisted effective bindings are corrupt; recompute them or start a new run.');
  } else throw err;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: executeWorkflow reads a run whose persisted effective bindings section fails runModelBindingsMetadataSchema — e.g. malformed binding entries under effective/ written by a buggy or older writer, or manual database tampering.

Common situations: Version drift between the binary that wrote the run and the binary resuming it; a writer bug persisting effective bindings before overrides were normalized; manual edits to run rows.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of coleam00/Archon@0773b97458 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4d87e70f68f7cf3e. Report an issue: GitHub.