What causes "SecretsMB value (%d) cannot be negative" in hashicorp/nomad?

Set SecretsMB (secrets_mb) to 0 or a positive integer

SecretsMB value (%d) cannot be negative

Error message

SecretsMB value (%d) cannot be negative

What it means

Resources.Validate() rejects a negative SecretsMB. Reserved secret memory is a byte count and only non-negative values are meaningful; negative values would corrupt accounting in the scheduler and driver. -1 is not accepted here as a sentinel (unlike memory_max).

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/structs.go:2473

		}
	}

	// Ensure the numa block is valid
	if err := r.NUMA.Validate(); err != nil {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, err)
	}

	// Ensure memory_max is greater than memory, unless it is set to 0 or -1 which
	// are both sentinel values
	if (r.MemoryMaxMB != 0 && r.MemoryMaxMB != MemoryNoLimit) && r.MemoryMaxMB < r.MemoryMB {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, fmt.Errorf("MemoryMaxMB value (%d) should be larger than MemoryMB value (%d)", r.MemoryMaxMB, r.MemoryMB))
	}

	if r.SecretsMB > r.MemoryMB {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, fmt.Errorf("SecretsMB value (%d) cannot be larger than MemoryMB value (%d)", r.SecretsMB, r.MemoryMB))
	}
	if r.SecretsMB < 0 {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, fmt.Errorf("SecretsMB value (%d) cannot be negative", r.SecretsMB))
	}

	return mErr.ErrorOrNil()
}

// Merge merges this resource with another resource.
// COMPAT(0.10): Remove in 0.10
func (r *Resources) Merge(other *Resources) {
	if other.CPU != 0 {
		r.CPU = other.CPU
	}
	if other.Cores != 0 {
		r.Cores = other.Cores
	}
	if other.MemoryMB != 0 {
		r.MemoryMB = other.MemoryMB
	}
	if other.MemoryMaxMB != 0 {

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

Set SecretsMB (secrets_mb) to 0 or a positive integer
Remove secrets_mb from the resources block entirely if unused

Example fix

// before
resources {
  secrets_mb = -1
}
// after
resources {
  secrets_mb = 0
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if r.SecretsMB < 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("secrets_mb (%d) must be >= 0", r.SecretsMB)
}

Type guard

func nonNegative(n int) bool { return n >= 0 }

Prevention

Don't use -1 as an unset sentinel for secrets_mb; omit the field instead
Clamp computed values with max(0, x) when templating resources

When it happens

Trigger: Submitting a job whose task Resources has SecretsMB < 0, e.g. secrets_mb = -1.

Common situations: Using -1 to mean 'unset' as one might with other memory fields; arithmetic producing negative values when templating resources; typo of a leading minus sign.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/60c3c1faa7bd105c. Report an issue: GitHub.