influxdata/influxdb · error · NewRoleDescriptionError

role description cannot be empty

Error message

role description cannot be empty

What it means

NewRoleDescriptionError::Empty is returned when a role description is supplied as an empty string. The library requires a non-empty description when constructing RoleDescription so every role carries meaningful human-readable context.

Solutions

1. Provide a non-empty description string when creating/updating the role
2. If the description is truly optional, supply a placeholder such as "(no description)" if the schema mandates a value
3. Validate with !description.trim().is_empty() before calling the API

Example fix

// before
let desc = ""; // rejected
// after
let desc = "Grants read access to telemetry buckets";

fn valid_role_description(desc: &str) -> bool {
    !desc.trim().is_empty()
}

When it happens

Trigger: Creating or updating a role with description = "" via the role management API or RoleDescription::try_from/new.

Common situations: UI forms that allow submitting a blank description field, or API clients that default description to an empty string instead of omitting or providing real text.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• role description contains invalid characters: only…
• role description exceeds maximum length of
• role name contains invalid characters: only alphanumeric and
• role name exceeds maximum length of
• All `DataPoints` must have at least one field. Builder…

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/906d0733d8021888. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at influxdb3_authz/src/role/role.rs:136

                format_allowed_chars(ROLE_DESCRIPTION_ALLOWED_SPECIAL_CHARS),
            ));
        }

        Ok(Self(description.to_string()))
    }

    pub fn into_inner(self) -> String {
        self.0
    }

    pub fn new_unchecked(description: String) -> Self {
        Self(description)
    }
}

#[derive(Debug, Clone, Error)]
pub enum NewRoleDescriptionError {
    #[error("role description cannot be empty")]
    Empty,
    #[error("role description exceeds maximum length of {ROLE_DESCRIPTION_MAX_LENGTH} characters")]
    TooLong,
    #[error(
        "role description contains invalid characters: only alphanumeric and [{0}] are allowed"
    )]
    InvalidCharacters(String),
}

fn format_allowed_chars(chars: &[char]) -> String {
    chars
        .iter()
        .map(|c| format!("'{c}'"))
        .collect::<Vec<_>>()
        .join(", ")
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 06200ef96b)