flowable/flowable-engine · error · IllegalArgumentException

decision table does not contain a hit policy

Error message

decision table does not contain a hit policy

What it means

Every decision table processed by initializeDecisionExecutionAudit must declare a hit policy; a table with a null hit policy cannot be audited or executed deterministically, so this IllegalArgumentException is thrown after logging.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-dmn-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/dmn/engine/impl/audit/DecisionExecutionAuditUtil.java:58

        
        DmnEngineConfiguration dmnEngineConfiguration = CommandContextUtil.getDmnEngineConfiguration();

        return new DecisionServiceExecutionAuditContainer(decisionService.getId(), decisionService.getName(), executeDecisionInfo.getDecisionVersion(),
                dmnEngineConfiguration.isStrictMode(), executeDecisionInfo.getVariables(), dmnEngineConfiguration.getClock().getCurrentTime());
    }

    public static DecisionExecutionAuditContainer initializeDecisionExecutionAudit(Decision decision, ExecuteDecisionContext executeDecisionInfo) {

        if (decision == null || decision.getId() == null) {
            LOGGER.error("decision does not contain key");
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("decision does not contain decision key");
        }

        DecisionTable decisionTable = (DecisionTable) decision.getExpression();

        if (decisionTable.getHitPolicy() == null) {
            LOGGER.error("decision table does not contain a hit policy");
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("decision table does not contain a hit policy");
        }
        
        Clock clock = CommandContextUtil.getDmnEngineConfiguration().getClock();

        return new DecisionExecutionAuditContainer(decision.getId(), decision.getName(), executeDecisionInfo.getDecisionVersion(), 
                        decisionTable.getHitPolicy(), CommandContextUtil.getDmnEngineConfiguration().isStrictMode(), 
                        executeDecisionInfo.getVariables(), clock.getCurrentTime());
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Add an explicit hitPolicy attribute to the decision table in the DMN XML (e.g. hitPolicy="UNIQUE")
2. Set hit policy programmatically if building the model in code
3. Re-export/re-save the DMN file from the modeling tool ensuring hit policy is set

Example fix

// before
<decisionTable> <!-- no hitPolicy -->
// after
<decisionTable hitPolicy="UNIQUE">

DecisionTable dt = (DecisionTable) decision.getExpression();
if (dt.getHitPolicy() == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("decision table must declare a hitPolicy");

When it happens

Trigger: initializeDecisionExecutionAudit reads decision.getExpression() as a DecisionTable and finds decisionTable.getHitPolicy() == null.

Common situations: DMN XML written without the hitPolicy attribute (some editors allow omitting it; the spec default UNIQUE is not auto-applied here); hand-crafted DecisionTable models in tests; older DMN files from tools that omit hitPolicy.

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

• version must be positive
• more than one result in decision:
• more than one result
• HitPolicy behavior: %s not configured
• HitPolicy: %s has aggregation: %s and multiple outputs. This

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1d9428ce1029ab2a. Report an issue: GitHub.