What causes "Commit "%s" is not valid." in phacility/phabricator?

Use the full hash or the r monogram so DiffusionCommitQuery resolves it uniquely

phacility/phabricator · warning · PhutilArgumentUsageException

Commit "%s" is not valid.

Error message

Commit "%s" is not valid.

What it means

In ./bin/differential extract, the single commit argument is resolved through DiffusionCommitQuery->withIdentifiers()->executeOne(); if no imported, visible commit matches, the workflow throws 'Commit "%s" is not valid.' This is a lookup failure: the string may be well-formed but does not correspond to a discovered commit in Phabricator.

Source

Thrown at src/applications/differential/management/PhabricatorDifferentialExtractWorkflow.php:44

    if (!$extract) {
      throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
        pht('Specify a commit to extract the diff from.'));
    }

    if (count($extract) > 1) {
      throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
        pht('Specify exactly one commit to extract.'));
    }

    $extract = head($extract);

    $commit = id(new DiffusionCommitQuery())
      ->setViewer($viewer)
      ->withIdentifiers(array($extract))
      ->executeOne();

    if (!$commit) {
      throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
        pht(
          'Commit "%s" is not valid.',
          $extract));
    }

    $diff = id(new DifferentialDiffExtractionEngine())
      ->setViewer($viewer)
      ->newDiffFromCommit($commit);

    $uri = PhabricatorEnv::getProductionURI($diff->getURI());

    echo tsprintf(
      "%s\n\n    %s\n",
      pht('Extracted diff from "%s":', $extract),
      $uri);
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to 5720a38cfe)

Solutions

Use the full hash or the r<REPO><hash> monogram so DiffusionCommitQuery resolves it uniquely
Ensure discovery and import finished: './bin/repository discover --repoid <id>' and check './bin/repository importing' is empty
Run as an admin or a viewer with access to the repository, then retry
Confirm the commit exists in the hosted repository (git cat-file -t <hash>)

Example fix

# before
phabricator/ $ ./bin/differential extract abc123
Usage Exception: Commit "abc123" is not valid.

# after
phabricator/ $ ./bin/differential extract rP703dcf56d0b6a4e01a52b1c6a1a1a8d1f8e2ab3c

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Confirm the commit is discoverable before extracting:
phabricator/ $ ./bin/repository importing            # no pending rows for the repo
phabricator/ $ ./bin/differential extract rP703dcf56d0b6a4e01a52b1c6a1a1a8d1f8e2ab3c

Type guard

// Accept only unambiguous identifiers:
preg_match('/^r[A-Z]+[0-9a-f]{7,40}$|^[0-9a-f]{40}$/', $extract)

Try / catch

try {
  $workflow->execute($args);
} catch (PhutilArgumentUsageException $ex) {
  // 'Commit ... is not valid' -> run discovery, wait for import, retry with full hash.
}

Prevention

Extract only after discovery/parse daemons have processed the commit (check ./bin/repository importing)
Use full hashes or r<REPO> monograms; short hashes can be ambiguous without repository context
Verify the hash exists in the hosted repository first (git cat-file -t <hash>)

When it happens

Trigger: Hash that is ambiguous or short without repository context; commit not yet discovered/imported (repository discovery or daemons behind); repository invisible to the acting viewer; typo or wrong repo's hash; passing a branch or tag name instead of a commit identifier.

Common situations: Extracting immediately after a push before './bin/repository discover' and commit parsing complete; environments with paused daemons; administrators testing with hashes from a fork not hosted on the install.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of phacility/phabricator@5720a38cfe (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/450b8501af2ab774. Report an issue: GitHub.