gatsbyjs/gatsby · error · Error

A RegExp instance is only valid for $regex and $glob compara

Error message

A RegExp instance is only valid for $regex and $glob comparators

What it means

Late-stage guard in getNodesFromCacheByValue: after special-cased operators, a filter value that is a RegExp appears under a comparator other than $regex/$glob. Since RegExp cannot be an index key, this is rejected — most likely an internal misuse of the cache API.

Source

Thrown at packages/gatsby/src/datastore/in-memory/indexing.ts:828

      // Nothing is lt/gt null
      return undefined
    }

    // This is an edge case and this value should be directly indexed
    // For `lte`/`gte` this should only return nodes for `null`, not a "range"
    return filterCache.byValue.get(filterValue)
  }

  if (Array.isArray(filterValue)) {
    throw new Error(
      "Array is an invalid filter value for the `" + op + "` comparator"
    )
  }

  if (filterValue instanceof RegExp) {
    // This is most likely an internal error, although it is possible for
    // users to talk to this API more directly.
    throw new Error(
      `A RegExp instance is only valid for $regex and $glob comparators`
    )
  }

  if (op === `$lt`) {
    // First try a direct approach. If a value is queried that also exists then
    // we can prevent a binary search through the whole list, O(1) vs O(log n)

    const ranges = filterCache.meta.valueRangesAsc
    const nodes = filterCache.meta.nodesByValueAsc

    const range = ranges!.get(filterValue)
    if (range) {
      const arr = nodes!.slice(0, range[0])
      arr.sort(sortByIds)
      // elemMatch can cause a node to appear in multiple buckets so we must dedupe
      if (wasElemMatch) {
        expensiveDedupeInline(arr)

View on GitHub (pinned to e85d62f177)

Solutions

1. Use RegExp values only with $regex or $glob comparators
2. Convert regex intentions to a $regex filter statement
3. Report as a Gatsby bug if it occurs with a plain GraphQL query

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/gatsby/src/datastore/in-memory/indexing.ts:828 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of gatsbyjs/gatsby@e85d62f177 (2026-08-26). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e97b73ef561fcacf. Report an issue: GitHub.