hashicorp/nomad · error

%s must be integer; got (%T) %[2]v

Error message

%s must be integer; got (%T) %[2]v

What it means

parseVariableSpecImpl maps raw HCL-decoded values onto api.Variable fields. `create_index` and `modify_index` must decode as Go ints; if the HCL file supplies them as another type (string, float, etc.) the function returns `%s must be integer; got (%T) %v`, naming the offending key and its actual Go type/value.

Source

Thrown at command/var_put.go:516

	// Check for invalid keys
	valid := []string{
		"namespace",
		"path",
		"create_index",
		"modify_index",
		"create_time",
		"modify_time",
		"items",
	}
	if err := helper.CheckHCLKeys(list, valid); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	for _, index := range []string{"create_index", "modify_index"} {
		if value, ok := m[index]; ok {
			vInt, ok := value.(int)
			if !ok {
				return fmt.Errorf("%s must be integer; got (%T) %[2]v", index, value)
			}
			idx := uint64(vInt)
			n := strings.ReplaceAll(
				cases.Title(language.English).String(
					strings.ReplaceAll(index, "_", " "),
				), " ", "")
			m[n] = idx
			delete(m, index)
		}
	}

	for _, index := range []string{"create_time", "modify_time"} {
		if value, ok := m[index]; ok {
			vInt, ok := value.(int)
			if !ok {
				return fmt.Errorf("%s must be a int64; got a (%T) %[2]v", index, value)
			}
			n := strings.ReplaceAll(

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Remove `create_index`/`modify_index` from the spec entirely — the server manages these fields.
2. If they must be present, write them as bare integers: `create_index = 42`, no quotes or decimals.
3. Regenerate the spec from `nomad var init` instead of editing API output.

Example fix

// before
create_index = "42"
// after
create_index = 42

# strip server-managed fields from the spec before submitting
grep -E '^(create_index|modify_index)\s*=' spec.hcl && { echo 'remove create_index/modify_index from spec' >&2; exit 1; } || true

if err := run(); err != nil {
    var terr *fmt.Errorf // message contains 'must be integer'
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "must be integer") {
        log.Fatalf("spec index field wrong type: %v", err)
    }
    log.Fatal(err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: An .hcl spec containing `create_index = "12"` or a non-integer literal (e.g. `12.0`) for `create_index`/`modify_index`, typically because the value was copy-pasted from `nomad var read` output in JSON form where indexes appear as quoted or large numbers.

Common situations: Round-tripping a variable read from the API into an HCL spec without removing read-only fields (CreateIndex/ModifyIndex are server-managed and should generally be omitted from specs).

Related errors

• %s must be a int64; got a (%T) %[2]v
• <combined HCL diagnostics from str.String()>
• invalid variables limit: %v
• invalid capacity: %v
• invalid capacity_min: %v

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c74ce1756124c7a1. Report an issue: GitHub.