hashicorp/nomad · error

variable requires path

Error message

variable requires path

What it means

ValidatePath found an empty variable path. Every Nomad variable is addressed by a path, so VariableData.Validate fails immediately before the regex check when path is the empty string.

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/variables.go:415

	if vd.Namespace == AllNamespacesSentinel {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, errWildCardNamespace)
		return &mErr
	}

	if vd.Items.Size() > maxVariableSize {
		return errQuotaExhausted
	}

	if err := ValidatePath(vd.Path); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	return vd.Lock.Validate()
}

func ValidatePath(path string) error {
	if len(path) == 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("variable requires path")
	}
	if !validVariablePath.MatchString(path) {
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid path %q", path)
	}

	parts := strings.Split(path, "/")

	if parts[0] != "nomad" {
		return nil
	}

	// Don't allow a variable with path "nomad"
	if len(parts) == 1 {
		return fmt.Errorf(`"nomad" is a reserved top-level directory path, but you may write variables to "nomad/jobs", "nomad/job-templates", "nomad/sentinel", or below`)
	}

	switch {
	case parts[1] == "jobs" || parts[1] == "sentinel":

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Supply a path such as "my/app/config" when creating or updating the variable
2. Check the client SDK call is not dropping the path field

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at nomad/structs/variables.go:415 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9b197b440ca13479. Report an issue: GitHub.