What causes "tenantId is null" in flowable/flowable-engine?

Pass the actual non-null tenant id string the executions were created with.

flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

tenantId is null

Error message

tenantId is null

What it means

FlowableIllegalArgumentException thrown by DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery.tenantId(String) when a null tenant identifier is passed. Tenant id is used to filter historic decision executions in multi-tenant deployments; the library rejects null eagerly so the query never runs with an unintended 'match all tenants' semantics.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-dmn-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/dmn/engine/impl/HistoricDecisionExecutionQueryImpl.java:171

    @Override
    public DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery caseInstanceIdWithChildren(String caseInstanceId) {
        this.caseInstanceIdWithChildren = caseInstanceId;
        return this;
    }
    
    @Override
    public DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery failed(Boolean failed) {
        if (failed == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("failed is null");
        }
        this.failed = failed;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery tenantId(String tenantId) {
        if (tenantId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("tenantId is null");
        }
        this.tenantId = tenantId;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery tenantIdLike(String tenantIdLike) {
        if (tenantIdLike == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("tenantId is null");
        }
        this.tenantIdLike = tenantIdLike;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery withoutTenantId() {
        this.withoutTenantId = true;
        return this;

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

Pass the actual non-null tenant id string the executions were created with.
If tenant filtering is not needed, omit the tenantId() call.
For pattern matching use tenantIdLike(pattern) with a non-null string, or null-check the resolved tenant before querying.

Example fix

// before
query.tenantId(tenantContext.getTenantId()); // getTenantId() may return null
// after
String tenantId = tenantContext.getTenantId();
if (tenantId != null) {
    query.tenantId(tenantId);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

String tenantId = tenantContext.getTenantId();
if (tenantId == null || tenantId.isEmpty()) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("No tenant resolved for query");
}
query.tenantId(tenantId);

Type guard

boolean hasTenant(Object v) { return v instanceof String s && !s.isEmpty(); }

Try / catch

try {
    query.tenantId(tenantId);
} catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("Tenant resolution failed before query", e);
}

Prevention

Resolve and validate the tenant id before building any query.
Use tenantIdLike() with a default pattern if tenant is optional.
Fail early at tenant-resolution time rather than at query-build time.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling .tenantId(null) on a DmnHistoricDecisionExecutionQuery — usually when the tenant id is taken from an unset context, an absent authentication/session attribute, or a null field in the calling code.

Common situations: Multi-tenant apps where tenant resolution failed and returned null instead of a default tenant; copying query-building code where tenantId was optional; unit tests passing null placeholders.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/24037fb6f5141faa. Report an issue: GitHub.