What causes "invalid date type: #{date[:type]}" in instructure/canvas-lms?

Change the date's type to exactly 'everyone' or 'override' (lowercase).

instructure/canvas-lms · error · Checkpoints::InvalidDateTypeError

invalid date type: #

Error message

invalid date type: #{date[:type]}

What it means

In validate_dates, after confirming a date's :type is present, it is checked against the whitelist %w[everyone override]; any other value raises InvalidDateTypeError with the offending value. This prevents silently ignoring misspelled types that would otherwise produce dates no service handles.

Solutions

Change the date's type to exactly 'everyone' or 'override' (lowercase).
Fix client-side dropdown/enum mappings that emit different strings.
If a new type is genuinely needed, update valid_date_types in discussion_checkpoint_common_service.rb along with handling code.

Example fix

// before
dates: [{ type: 'overrides', due_at: t }]
// after
dates: [{ type: 'override', due_at: t }]

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

VALID = %w[everyone override].freeze
dates.each { |d| raise ArgumentError, "bad type #{d[:type]}" unless VALID.include?(d[:type]) }

Type guard

def valid_date_types?(dates)
  dates.all? { |d| %w[everyone override].include?(d[:type].to_s) }
end

Try / catch

begin
  service.call(...)
rescue Checkpoints::InvalidDateTypeError => e
  render json: { error: e.message }, status: :bad_request
end

Prevention

Use a shared enum constant for date types across client and server
Never use AssignmentOverride set_type strings as date types
Test payloads with both allowed values to catch typos early

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a date hash whose :type is non-blank but not 'everyone'/'override', e.g. type: 'section', 'student', 'Everyone', 'all', or 'overrides' (plural).

Common situations: Typos and casing mistakes in client payloads; developers extending the date model with new types without updating this whitelist; other Canvas date vocabularies (e.g. 'CourseSection' set_type) mistakenly used as the type value.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of instructure/canvas-lms@1c9f0bb801 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ac9a649d5cedafa3. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at app/services/checkpoints/discussion_checkpoint_common_service.rb:49

  end

  private

  def validate_flag_enabled
    unless @discussion_topic.context.discussion_checkpoints_enabled?
      raise Checkpoints::FlagDisabledError, "discussion_checkpoints feature flag must be enabled"
    end
  end

  def validate_dates
    valid_date_types = %w[everyone override].freeze

    @dates.each do |date|
      if date[:type].blank?
        raise Checkpoints::DateTypeRequiredError, "each date must have a type specified ('everyone' or 'override')"
      end
      unless valid_date_types.include?(date[:type])
        raise Checkpoints::InvalidDateTypeError, "invalid date type: #{date[:type]}"
      end
    end
  end

  def attributes_to_inherit_from_parent
    # TODO: handle peer reviews
    %w[
      assignment_group_id
      context_id
      context_type
      description
      grade_group_students_individually
      grading_type
      grading_standard_id
      group_category
      group_category_id
      position
      submission_types

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