facebook/relay · error

Cannot print empty selections for {name}. Please, check tran

Error message

Cannot print empty selections for {name}. Please, check transforms that may produce invalid selections.

What it means

Panic in print_selections while serializing an operation or fragment to GraphQL text: the selection set is empty after printing began. The text printer cannot emit a valid selection set with zero fields, so a transform upstream produced an invalid definition (e.g. a fragment left with all fields stripped). The message names the definition to inspect.

Source

Thrown at compiler/crates/graphql-text-printer/src/print_to_text.rs:268

        let len = selections.len();
        if len > 0 {
            self.print_optional_space()?;
            write!(self.writer, "{{")?;
            self.indentation += 1;
            self.print_new_line(true)?;

            for (i, selection) in selections.iter().enumerate() {
                self.print_selection(selection, None)?;
                if i != len - 1 {
                    self.print_item_separator()?;
                }
            }

            self.indentation -= 1;
            self.print_new_line(true)?;
            write!(self.writer, "}}")?;
        } else {
            panic!(
                "Cannot print empty selections for {name}. Please, check transforms that may produce invalid selections."
            );
        }
        Ok(())
    }

    fn print_selection(
        &mut self,
        selection: &Selection,
        conditions: Option<Vec<&Condition>>,
    ) -> FmtResult {
        match selection {
            Selection::ScalarField(field) => self.print_scalar_field(field, conditions),
            Selection::LinkedField(field) => self.print_linked_field(field, conditions),
            Selection::FragmentSpread(field) => self.print_fragment_spread(field, conditions),
            Selection::InlineFragment(field) => self.print_inline_fragment(field, conditions),
            Selection::Condition(field) => self.print_condition(field, conditions),
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 668b1b85e0)

Solutions

1. Identify which transform runs before printing removed all selections from the named definition
2. Guard custom transforms to skip or prune definitions that would end up with empty selection sets
3. Ensure @include/@skip directives don't statically remove every field of a fragment

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at compiler/crates/graphql-text-printer/src/print_to_text.rs:268 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of facebook/relay@668b1b85e0 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2e858f5870d10c33. Report an issue: GitHub.