hashicorp/nomad · error

Invalid key value pair for topic: %s

Error message

Invalid key value pair for topic: %s

What it means

This error is returned by the topic/filter parsing helper in `nomad operator debug` when the user-supplied topic spec (a "topic=filter" key/value pair) does not split into the expected 1 or 2 parts. Only formats `topic` and `topic=filter` are accepted; anything with more than one `=` separator (or otherwise malformed input) hits the default case. The topic portion is then title-cased to match the api.Topic enum.

Source

Thrown at command/operator_debug.go:1923

	}

	return topics, mErrs.ErrorOrNil()
}

func parseTopic(input string) (string, string, error) {
	var topic, filter string

	parts := strings.Split(input, ":")
	switch len(parts) {
	case 1:
		// infer wildcard if only given a topic
		topic = input
		filter = "*"
	case 2:
		topic = parts[0]
		filter = parts[1]
	default:
		return "", "", fmt.Errorf("Invalid key value pair for topic: %s", topic)
	}

	return cases.Title(language.English).String(topic), filter, nil
}

func allTopics() map[api.Topic][]string {
	return map[api.Topic][]string{"*": {"*"}}
}

// topicsFromString parses a comma separated list into a topicMap
func topicsFromString(topicList string) (map[api.Topic][]string, error) {
	if topicList == "none" {
		return nil, nil
	}
	if topicList == "all" {
		return allTopics(), nil
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Remove or escape any extra '=' characters so the spec contains at most one '=' (format: topic=filter).
2. Use just the topic name with no '=' to apply the default '*' filter.
3. Quote the flag value in your shell and verify the variable contents do not contain stray '=' characters.
4. Check the topic spelling; it is title-cased (e.g. evaluation, node, deployment) before being matched against api.Topic.

Example fix

// before
// -topic="Evaluation=*extra=1"
// after
// -topic="Evaluation=*"

parts := strings.Split(spec, "=")
if len(parts) > 2 {
    return fmt.Errorf("topic spec must be 'topic' or 'topic=filter', got %q", spec)
}
topic, filter := parts[0], "*"
if len(parts) == 2 {
    filter = parts[1]
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `nomad operator debug -topic ...` (or the equivalent API/wrapper call) with a topic string like `a=b=c` or any spec that splits into 3+ parts via strings.Split on '='.

Common situations: Typing an extra '=' in a filter value, pasting a key=value pair containing an encoded '=' (e.g. base64 or URL params) into the filter, or scripting the flag with improperly quoted shell variables containing '='.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

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AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e06c4c4447a516c3. Report an issue: GitHub.