langchain-ai/deepagents · error · ValueError

Invalid sort_order {sort_order!r}; expected 'updated_at' or

Error message

Invalid sort_order {sort_order!r}; expected 'updated_at' or 'created_at'

What it means

save_thread_sort_order persists the thread-selector sort preference and only accepts 'updated_at' or 'created_at'. Any other value raises ValueError("Invalid sort_order {sort_order!r}; expected 'updated_at' or 'created_at'"). The library validates up front so the TOML config never holds an unusable sort key.

Source

Thrown at libs/code/deepagents_code/model_config.py:6337

def save_thread_sort_order(sort_order: str, config_path: Path | None = None) -> bool:
    """Save the sort order preference for the thread selector.

    Args:
        sort_order: `"updated_at"` or `"created_at"`.
        config_path: Path to config file.

    Returns:
        True if save succeeded, False on I/O error.

    Raises:
        ValueError: If `sort_order` is not a recognised value.
    """
    if sort_order not in {"updated_at", "created_at"}:
        msg = (
            f"Invalid sort_order {sort_order!r}; expected 'updated_at' or 'created_at'"
        )
        raise ValueError(msg)
    if config_path is None:
        config_path = DEFAULT_CONFIG_PATH
    try:
        with _config_write_lock:
            config_path.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
            if config_path.exists():
                with config_path.open("rb") as f:
                    data = tomllib.load(f)
            else:
                data = {}
            if "threads" not in data:
                data["threads"] = {}
            data["threads"]["sort_order"] = sort_order
            fd, tmp_path = tempfile.mkstemp(dir=config_path.parent, suffix=".tmp")
            try:
                with os.fdopen(fd, "wb") as f:
                    tomli_w.dump(data, f)
                Path(tmp_path).replace(config_path)

View on GitHub (pinned to a1af029e6e)

Solutions

Pass exactly 'updated_at' or 'created_at'; map UI labels to these canonical values before saving.
Normalize with sort_order.lower() and validate against {'updated_at','created_at'} before the call.
Migrate/ignore legacy persisted sort values instead of re-saving them.

Example fix

// before
save_thread_sort_order(ui_label)  # e.g. "name"
// after
if ui_label not in {"updated_at", "created_at"}:
    ui_label = "updated_at"
save_thread_sort_order(ui_label)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

VALID_SORT_ORDERS = {"updated_at", "created_at"}
if sort_order not in VALID_SORT_ORDERS:
    sort_order = "updated_at"  # safe default before saving

Try / catch

try:
    save_thread_sort_order(sort_order)
except ValueError as exc:
    logging.warning("%s; using default", exc)
    save_thread_sort_order("updated_at")

Prevention

Define a single SortOrder Literal/enum in your app and derive UI options from it.
Map UI labels to canonical snake_case values at the boundary.
Migrate legacy persisted values once at load time.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling save_thread_sort_order("name"), save_thread_sort_order("updatedAt"), or any string outside {'updated_at','created_at'} (case-sensitive), with an optional config_path.

Common situations: Binding a UI toggle to a different label set ('name', 'asc') without mapping; camelCase vs snake_case mixups; older persisted values from a previous schema being re-saved.

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 langchain-ai/deepagents@a1af029e6e (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/67b98f8edc8a6b52. Report an issue: GitHub.