phacility/phabricator · error · Exception

Key "%s" is not a valid priority constant. Priority constant

Error message

Key "%s" is not a valid priority constant. Priority constants must be nonnegative integers.

What it means

Inside ManiphestTaskPriority::validateConfiguration, every key of the maniphest.priorities dict must pass ctype_digit() — a nonnegative integer written in plain digits. Keys like 'high', '9.5', '-1', '0x5A' or '90 ' fail and throw this Exception with the offending key interpolated.

Source

Thrown at src/applications/maniphest/constants/ManiphestTaskPriority.php:208

    // Alphanumeric, but not exclusively numeric
    if (!preg_match('/^(?![0-9]*$)[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/', $keyword)) {
      return false;
    }
    return true;
  }

  public static function validateConfiguration($config) {
    if (!is_array($config)) {
      throw new Exception(
        pht(
          'Configuration is not valid. Maniphest priority configurations '.
          'must be dictionaries.'));
    }

    $all_keywords = array();
    foreach ($config as $key => $value) {
      if (!ctype_digit((string)$key)) {
        throw new Exception(
          pht(
            'Key "%s" is not a valid priority constant. Priority constants '.
            'must be nonnegative integers.',
            $key));
      }

      if (!is_array($value)) {
        throw new Exception(
          pht(
            'Value for key "%s" should be a dictionary.',
            $key));
      }

      PhutilTypeSpec::checkMap(
        $value,
        array(
          'name' => 'string',
          'keywords' => 'list<string>',

View on GitHub (pinned to 5720a38cfe)

Solutions

Use plain digit strings as keys: "100", "90", "50", "25", "0" (no decimals, signs, or letters).
Give each level a human name and keywords inside the value dict instead of in the key.
Validate with ctype_digit((string)$key) on your config array before writing it.

Example fix

// before
$purities = array(
  'unbreak' => array('name' => 'Unbreak Now', 'keywords' => array('unbreak-now')),
);

// after
$priorities = array(
  '100' => array('name' => 'Unbreak Now', 'keywords' => array('unbreak-now')),
);

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

foreach (array_keys($priorities) as $key) {
  if (!ctype_digit((string)$key)) {
    throw new InvalidArgumentException("Priority key '$key' must be a nonnegative integer string");
  }
}

Type guard

function is_priority_constant($key) { return ctype_digit((string)$key); }

Prevention

Use plain digit-string keys ('0'..'100'); avoid decimals, signs, letters.
Put display names inside the value dict, not the key.
Validate keys with ctype_digit before any config write.

When it happens

Trigger: Setting maniphest.priorities with a non-digit key: {"high": {...}}, {"9.5": {...}}, {"-10": {...}}, or a float key that PHP stringifies to '9.5'/'1.0E+25'. The foreach hits the key before validating the value.

Common situations: Reusing keyword-like keys ('high', 'low') from a previous schema or another tracker import. JSON numbers with decimals or exponent notation becoming keys. Whitespace or a BOM sneaking into hand-edited config files.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of phacility/phabricator@5720a38cfe (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/25b6077354a7b8c6. Report an issue: GitHub.