langchain-ai/deepagents · error · ValueError

Goal amendment requests require criteria and feedback.

Error message

Goal amendment requests require criteria and feedback.

What it means

Amending an existing goal requires both replacement `criteria` and the `feedback` explaining why, and both must be non-blank strings. When `kind` is `"amend"` and either field is missing or blank, `_goal_criteria_request` raises this `ValueError`.

Source

Thrown at libs/code/deepagents_code/goal_rubric.py:1246

    # Values are validated for non-blankness but stored verbatim (not stripped):
    # this feature deliberately preserves the user's exact goal/criteria wording,
    # and the prompt builders wrap each value in explicit XML boundaries.
    optional: dict[str, str] = {}
    for key in ("criteria", "feedback", "previous_criteria"):
        item = value.get(key)
        if item is None:
            continue
        if not isinstance(item, str):
            msg = f"Goal criteria request field {key} must be text."
            raise TypeError(msg)
        optional[key] = item

    if kind == "amend":
        criteria = optional.get("criteria", "")
        feedback = optional.get("feedback", "")
        if not criteria.strip() or not feedback.strip():
            msg = "Goal amendment requests require criteria and feedback."
            raise ValueError(msg)
        return GoalAmendRequest(
            request_id=request_id,
            objective=objective,
            kind="amend",
            criteria=criteria,
            feedback=feedback,
        )

    create: GoalCreateRequest = {
        "request_id": request_id,
        "objective": objective,
        "kind": "create",
    }
    if "feedback" in optional:
        create["feedback"] = optional["feedback"]
    if "previous_criteria" in optional:
        create["previous_criteria"] = optional["previous_criteria"]
    return create

View on GitHub (pinned to a1af029e6e)

Solutions

1. Include both non-blank `criteria` and `feedback` strings in every amend request.
2. If there is no amendment, send `kind: "create"` instead of an amend with empty fields.
3. Validate the two fields in the caller before dispatching the request.

Example fix

// before
request = {"request_id": rid, "kind": "amend", "objective": obj, "criteria": new_criteria}
// after
request = {"request_id": rid, "kind": "amend", "objective": obj, "criteria": new_criteria, "feedback": "Rubric missing performance bounds"}

if value.get("kind") == "amend":
    criteria = value.get("criteria", "")
    feedback = value.get("feedback", "")
    if not criteria.strip() or not feedback.strip():
        raise ValueError("amend requests need non-blank criteria and feedback")

def is_complete_amend_request(value: dict) -> bool:
    if value.get("kind") != "amend":
        return True
    return all(
        isinstance(value.get(k), str) and value.get(k, "").strip()
        for k in ("criteria", "feedback")
    )

try:
    run_middleware(state)
except ValueError as e:
    if "require criteria and feedback" in str(e):
        collect_missing_amend_fields_from_user()

When it happens

Trigger: Building an amend-kind goal-criteria request with `criteria` and/or `feedback` omitted, empty, or whitespace-only; supplying only one of the two.

Common situations: A caller reusing a create-request builder (which needs no feedback) for amend flows; UI flows that collect feedback but forget to forward it; blank user input passed through unvalidated.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Missing required field" and "field is required" errors: why libraries reject payloads that omit mandatory fields — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Goal criteria request requires a request_id.
• Goal criteria request requires an objective.
• Could not parse embedded resource block. Block expected eith
• question text must not be blank
• choice has a blank 'value': {choice!r}

AI-assisted analysis of langchain-ai/deepagents@a1af029e6e (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/653c1b195465661c. Report an issue: GitHub.