What causes "missing parameterized job ID" in hashicorp/nomad?

Pass the parameterized job ID in the dispatch request (JobDispatchRequest.JobID)

missing parameterized job ID

Error message

missing parameterized job ID

What it means

Dispatch is the RPC endpoint that launches a child job (dispatch instance) from a parameterized job. Before looking up the job in state store, it requires args.JobID to be non-empty. An empty JobID means the client submitted a dispatch request without identifying which parameterized job to dispatch, so the server cannot proceed.

Source

Thrown at nomad/job_endpoint.go:2010

	}
	defer metrics.MeasureSince([]string{"nomad", "job", "dispatch"}, time.Now())

	// Check for submit-job permissions
	aclObj, err := j.srv.ResolveACL(args)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	} else if !aclObj.AllowNsOp(args.RequestNamespace(), acl.NamespaceCapabilityDispatchJob) {
		return structs.ErrPermissionDenied
	}

	if ok, err := registrationsAreAllowed(aclObj, j.srv.State()); !ok || err != nil {
		j.logger.Warn("job dispatch is currently disabled for non-management ACL")
		return structs.ErrJobRegistrationDisabled
	}

	// Lookup the parameterized job
	if args.JobID == "" {
		return fmt.Errorf("missing parameterized job ID")
	}

	snap, err := j.srv.fsm.State().Snapshot()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	ws := memdb.NewWatchSet()
	parameterizedJob, err := snap.JobByID(ws, args.RequestNamespace(), args.JobID)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	if parameterizedJob == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("parameterized job not found")
	}

	if !parameterizedJob.IsParameterized() {
		return fmt.Errorf("Specified job %q is not a parameterized job", args.JobID)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

Pass the parameterized job ID in the dispatch request (JobDispatchRequest.JobID)
If using the CLI, supply the job ID as the first argument: `nomad job dispatch <job-id>`
Verify the ID is not lost in templating/config before calling Dispatch

Example fix

// before
req := &structs.JobDispatchRequest{}
// after
req := &structs.JobDispatchRequest{JobID: "batch-process"}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if req.JobID == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("dispatch requires a JobID")
}

Prevention

Always set JobID when constructing JobDispatchRequest
For CLI usage, validate the positional argument count before invoking dispatch
Add a startup check that config-derived job IDs are non-empty

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the JobDispatch RPC (or `nomad job dispatch ''` / client.Dispatch with JobID set to "") without setting the JobID field on structs.JobDispatchRequest.

Common situations: Programmatic dispatch where the job ID variable was never populated or was overwritten by an empty result from config/templating; CLI wrappers that fail to forward a positional argument; API clients building the request struct manually and forgetting the ID field.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4592efe54371432b. Report an issue: GitHub.