n8n-io/n8n · error · TypeORMError

Provided "take" value is not a number. Please provide a nume

Error message

Provided "take" value is not a number. Please provide a numeric value.

What it means

Thrown by SelectQueryBuilder.take when the normalized value is NaN. `take` is the pagination primitive recommended over `limit` when joins are involved; the same numeric guard applies.

Source

Thrown at packages/@n8n/typeorm/src/query-builder/SelectQueryBuilder.ts:1362

	 * then use the skip method instead.
	 */
	offset(offset?: number): this {
		this.expressionMap.offset = this.normalizeNumber(offset);
		if (this.expressionMap.offset !== undefined && isNaN(this.expressionMap.offset))
			throw new TypeORMError(
				`Provided "offset" value is not a number. Please provide a numeric value.`,
			);

		return this;
	}

	/**
	 * Sets maximal number of entities to take.
	 */
	take(take?: number): this {
		this.expressionMap.take = this.normalizeNumber(take);
		if (this.expressionMap.take !== undefined && isNaN(this.expressionMap.take))
			throw new TypeORMError(
				`Provided "take" value is not a number. Please provide a numeric value.`,
			);

		return this;
	}

	/**
	 * Sets number of entities to skip.
	 */
	skip(skip?: number): this {
		this.expressionMap.skip = this.normalizeNumber(skip);
		if (this.expressionMap.skip !== undefined && isNaN(this.expressionMap.skip))
			throw new TypeORMError(
				`Provided "skip" value is not a number. Please provide a numeric value.`,
			);

		return this;
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5ac6606e81)

Solutions

Parse env/config once at load: `const TAKE = Number(process.env.PAGE_SIZE)` and validate finiteness.
Use a helper: `const take = toFiniteNumber(value, 50)` returning a default.
Pass undefined instead of '' or '0' (0 is valid but may not be intended).

Example fix

// before
qb.take(process.env.PAGE_SIZE); // string from env
// after
const take = Number(process.env.PAGE_SIZE);
qb.take(Number.isFinite(take) && take > 0 ? take : 50);

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function toTake(value: unknown, fallback = 50, max = 500): number {
  if (value == null || value === '') return fallback;
  const n = Number(value);
  if (!Number.isFinite(n) || n <= 0) throw new Error(`Invalid take: ${String(value)}`);
  return Math.min(Math.trunc(n), max);
}
// then: qb.take(toTake(process.env.PAGE_SIZE));

Type guard

function isPositiveInt(v: unknown): v is number {
  return typeof v === 'number' && Number.isInteger(v) && v > 0;
}

Prevention

Coerce env/config values to numbers at load time.
Apply an upper bound on take to prevent unbounded result sets.
Default to a fallback rather than forwarding empty strings.

When it happens

Trigger: `.take('foo')`, `.take(undefined-as-string)`, `.take(NaN)` after a malformed calculation, or passing a config object's pageSize that loaded as a string from JSON/env.

Common situations: Env-var-driven page sizes (always strings) fed directly; feature-flag configs that conditionally set take to a stringified number; join-based pagination where the author switched from limit() to take() but kept the string arg.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of n8n-io/n8n@5ac6606e81 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f7d80069c2a7959. Report an issue: GitHub.