instructure/canvas-lms · error · RuntimeError

User required for assessing

Error message

User required for assessing

What it means

RubricAssociation#assess creates a rubric assessment and requires opts to include :user (the student being assessed), :assessor, :artifact, and an assessment_type inside opts[:assessment]. Canvas raises this RuntimeError when opts[:user] is missing, since the artifact/assessment must be tied to a person.

Solutions

1. Pass opts[:user] (the assessed student) along with assessor and artifact in the assess call
2. Derive user from the artifact, e.g. user: submission.user, before calling assess
3. Add the remaining required opts too: :assessor, :artifact, and params[:assessment][:assessment_type] to avoid the following raises

Example fix

// before
assoc.assess(assessment: { assessment_type: "grading" }, assessor: teacher, artifact: submission)
// after
assoc.assess(user: submission.user, assessor: teacher, artifact: submission,
             assessment: { assessment_type: "grading" })

raise ArgumentError, "user, assessor, artifact and assessment_type required" unless opts[:user] && opts[:assessor] && opts[:artifact] && opts.dig(:assessment, :assessment_type)

def assessable_opts?(opts) = opts[:user].is_a?(User) && opts[:assessor].is_a?(User) && !opts[:artifact].nil? && opts.dig(:assessment, :assessment_type).present?

begin
  assoc.assess(opts)
rescue RuntimeError => e
  raise unless e.message.include?("required for assessing")
  Rails.logger.error("invalid assess opts: #{opts.keys.inspect}")
end

When it happens

Trigger: Calling association.assess(assessment: {...}, assessor: x, artifact: y) without opts[:user]; or user derived from an artifact that is nil.

Common situations: Custom rubric-assessment controllers or scripts that forget :user; peer-review automation where the submission's user cannot be resolved; old code paths using positional args against the new opts API.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• assessor and assessee required
• association required
• context required
• root_account_id required
• Artifact required for assessing

AI-assisted analysis of instructure/canvas-lms@1c9f0bb801 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/762bf6132d81bb00. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at app/models/rubric_association.rb:308

    association_object.is_a?(Assignment) && purpose == "grading" && assessment_type == "grading"
  end

  def assessment_points(criterion, data)
    if criterion.learning_outcome_id && !context.feature_enabled?(:outcome_extra_credit)
      [criterion.points, data[:points].to_f].min
    else
      data[:points].to_f
    end
  end
  protected :assessment_points

  def assess(opts = {})
    # TODO: what if this is for a group assignment?  Seems like it should
    # give all students for the group assignment the same rubric assessment
    # results.
    association = self
    params = opts[:assessment]
    raise "User required for assessing" unless opts[:user]
    raise "Assessor required for assessing" unless opts[:assessor]
    raise "Artifact required for assessing" unless opts[:artifact]
    raise "Assessment type required for assessing" unless params[:assessment_type]

    if opts[:artifact].is_a?(Quizzes::QuizSubmission)
      opts[:artifact] = association_object.find_or_create_submission(opts[:artifact].user)
    end

    if association_object.is_a?(Assignment) && !association_object.grade_group_students_individually
      group, students_to_assess = association_object.group_students(opts[:artifact].student)
      if group
        provisional_grader = opts[:artifact].is_a?(ModeratedGrading::ProvisionalGrade) && opts[:assessor]
        artifacts_to_assess = students_to_assess.map do |student|
          association_object.find_asset_for_assessment(self, student, provisional_grader:).first
        end
      else
        artifacts_to_assess = [opts[:artifact]]
      end

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