hashicorp/nomad · error

Vault validation failed: %v

Error message

Vault validation failed: %v

What it means

Raised in Task validation (nomad/structs/structs.go:8327) when the task's Vault block is present and Vault.Validate() fails. Vault policies in Nomad must be valid names (e.g. non-empty, no invalid characters); this error wraps the underlying cause for the submitted job's vault stanza.

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/structs.go:8327

	}

	// Validate Services
	if err := validateServices(t, tg.Networks); err != nil {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, err)
	}

	// Validate artifacts.
	for idx, artifact := range t.Artifacts {
		if err := artifact.Validate(); err != nil {
			outer := fmt.Errorf("Artifact %d validation failed: %v", idx+1, err)
			mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, outer)
		}
	}

	// Validate Vault.
	if t.Vault != nil {
		if err := t.Vault.Validate(); err != nil {
			mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, fmt.Errorf("Vault validation failed: %v", err))
		}
	}

	// Validate templates.
	destinations := make(map[string]int, len(t.Templates))
	for idx, tmpl := range t.Templates {
		if err := tmpl.Validate(); err != nil {
			outer := fmt.Errorf("Template %d validation failed: %s", idx+1, err)
			mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, outer)
		}

		if other, ok := destinations[tmpl.DestPath]; ok {
			outer := fmt.Errorf("Template %d has same destination as %d", idx+1, other)
			mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, outer)
		} else {
			destinations[tmpl.DestPath] = idx + 1
		}
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped inner error to see the exact policy problem.
2. Ensure every entry in vault.policies is a non-empty, valid policy name (alphanumeric, dashes, etc.).
3. Remove the vault block if the task does not need Vault tokens.
4. Verify the policies exist in Vault (nomad job validate will surface integration errors too).

Example fix

// before
vault {
  policies = ["${vault_policy}"]  // interpolates to empty
}
// after
vault {
  policies = ["my-app-policy"]
}

if t.Vault != nil {
  for _, p := range t.Vault.Policies {
    if p == "" || strings.ContainsAny(p, " \t/") {
      return fmt.Errorf("invalid vault policy name %q", p)
    }
  }
}

func validVaultPolicies(ps []string) bool {
  for _, p := range ps {
    if p == "" || strings.ContainsAny(p, " \t/") { return false }
  }
  return len(ps) > 0
}

When it happens

Trigger: task { vault { policies = [...] } } with an empty or malformed policy name (invalid characters, missing value) in the policies list; job submission over CLI or API triggers validation.

Common situations: Users typo policy names or leave policies = [] expecting defaults; jobs templated from scripts interpolating an empty policy variable; environment where Vault integration changed and policy naming rules tightened.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• %w, Namespaces: %s
• Disconnect cannot be configured with both lost_after and sto
• lost_after cannot be a negative duration
• stop_after cannot be a negative duration
• Missing job ID

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/06e638b48c62ca70. Report an issue: GitHub.