hashicorp/nomad · error

parse error: %v

Error message

parse error: %v

What it means

parseVolumeType first parses the raw input string with hcl.Parse to obtain an AST. If the input is not syntactically valid HCL, the parser error is wrapped as `parse error: %v`. This is a pure syntax-stage failure before any field decoding happens.

Source

Thrown at command/volume_register.go:139

	}

	switch volType {
	case "csi":
		return c.csiRegister(client, ast, override)
	case "host":
		return c.hostVolumeRegister(client, ast, override, volID)
	default:
		c.Ui.Error(fmt.Sprintf("Error unknown volume type: %s", volType))
		return 1
	}
}

// parseVolume is used to parse the quota specification from HCL
func parseVolumeType(input string) (*ast.File, string, error) {
	// Parse the AST first
	ast, err := hcl.Parse(input)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, "", fmt.Errorf("parse error: %v", err)
	}

	// Decode the type, so we can dispatch on it
	dispatch := &struct {
		T string `hcl:"type"`
	}{}
	err = hcl.DecodeObject(dispatch, ast)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, "", fmt.Errorf("dispatch error: %v", err)
	}

	return ast, dispatch.T, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Read the inner hcl parse error after `parse error:` — it includes line/column of the syntax problem
2. Run the input through hclfmt to locate the offending line
3. Balance braces/brackets and ensure every attribute uses `key = value` syntax
4. Verify the file is plain UTF-8 without smart quotes or BOM

Example fix

// before (missing '=' and unbalanced brace)
name "my-volume" {
  capacity = "10GiB"

// after
name = "my-volume"
type = "host"
capacity = "10GiB"

func validateHCLSyntax(input string) error {
	if _, err := hcl.Parse(input); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("HCL syntax problem: %v", err)
	}
	return nil
}
// or in shell: hclfmt -check volume.hcl

ast, typ, err := parseVolumeType(input)
if err != nil && strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "parse error:") {
	return fmt.Errorf("volume file has HCL syntax errors, run hclfmt: %v", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling volume register (`nomad volume register` / `volume create`) with HCL that has syntax errors: unbalanced braces, missing `=` between key and value, unterminated strings, or stray characters.

Common situations: Hand-editing volume specs and leaving a dangling brace; pasting JSON into an HCL context (or vice versa); editor encoding artifacts like smart quotes inside the file.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• <combined HCL diagnostics from str.String()>
• failed to parse HCL file %s: %w
• Unable to parse job submission to re-enable scaling policies
• error parsing: root should be an object
• limit should be an object

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ae3e8c24da556e46. Report an issue: GitHub.