puppetlabs/puppet · error · ArgumentError

Both type and title must be given

Error message

Both type and title must be given

What it means

Puppet::Pal::JsonCatalogEncoder#encode_resource requires both the resource type name and the title; if either is nil it raises ArgumentError before touching the catalog. The guard exists because the underlying catalog lookup behaves unpredictably when title is nil.

Solutions

1. Check both type and title are non-nil before calling encode_resource
2. Fix the data source: use fetch/default so the values are always present strings
3. Iterate catalog.resources and encode each instead of looking up by type/title

Example fix

# before
encoder.encode_resource(params['type'], params['tile']) # typo -> nil

# after
type  = params.fetch('type')
title = params.fetch('title')
json  = type && title ? encoder.encode_resource(type, title) : nil

return nil unless type.is_a?(String) && !type.empty? && title && !title.to_s.empty?
encoder.encode_resource(type, title)

def encodable_ref?(type, title)
  type.is_a?(String) && !type.empty? && title.is_a?(String) && !title.empty?
end

When it happens

Trigger: encoder.encode_resource('File', nil), encode_resource(nil, 'conf'), or dynamic lookups like encode_resource(res['type'], res['title']) where a hash key is missing or misspelled and yields nil.

Common situations: Driving catalog-to-JSON export from user-supplied hashes or YAML where fields are optional; key typos (:tile vs :title); iterating filtered resources whose title is empty.

Related errors

• A block must be given to 'in_environment'
• A block must be given to 'in_tmp_environment'
• Cannot alias to at ; resource already declared
• Cannot use ' ' and ' ' at the same time
• Could not deserialize catalog from

AI-assisted analysis of puppetlabs/puppet@e227c27540 (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b6f6f3d17f4844ad. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at lib/puppet/pal/json_catalog_encoder.rb:56

  # @return String The catalog in Json format using rich data format
  # @api public
  #
  def encode
    possibly_filtered_catalog.to_json(:pretty => pretty)
  end

  # Returns one particular resource as a Json string, or returns nil if resource was not found.
  # @param type [String] the name of the puppet type (case independent)
  # @param title [String] the title of the wanted resource
  # @return [String] the resulting Json text
  # @api public
  #
  def encode_resource(type, title)
    # Ensure that both type and title are given since the underlying API will do mysterious things
    # if 'title' is nil. (Other assertions are made by the catalog when looking up the resource).
    #
    # TRANSLATORS 'type' and 'title' are internal parameter names - do not translate
    raise ArgumentError, _("Both type and title must be given") if type.nil? or title.nil?

    r = possibly_filtered_catalog.resource(type, title)
    return nil if r.nil?

    r.to_data_hash.to_json(:pretty => pretty)
  end

  # Applies a filter for virtual resources and returns filtered catalog
  # or the catalog itself if filtering was not needed.
  # The result is cached.
  # @api private
  # rubocop:disable Naming/MemoizedInstanceVariableName
  def possibly_filtered_catalog
    @filtered ||= (exclude_virtual ? catalog.filter(&:virtual?) : catalog)
  end
  private :possibly_filtered_catalog
  # rubocop:enable Naming/MemoizedInstanceVariableName
end

View on GitHub (pinned to e227c27540)