failed to parse --{}-date option parameter `{}`. supported f

Error message

failed to parse --{}-date option parameter `{}`. supported format is `YYYY-MM-DD[ HH:DD[:SS]]`

What it means

`quickwit split list` accepts `--start-date`/`--end-date` (option_name interpolated) filters parsed with a small set of fixed `time` crate format descriptions: `YYYY-MM-DD`, `YYYY-MM-DD HH:DD`, or `YYYY-MM-DD HH:DD:SS`, interpreted as UTC. A value that does not parse under any of these formats bails with this error naming the offending option and string.

Source

Thrown at quickwit/quickwit-cli/src/split.rs:438

fn parse_date(date_arg: &str, option_name: &str) -> anyhow::Result<OffsetDateTime> {
    let description = format_description::parse_borrowed::<2>("[year]-[month]-[day]")?;
    if let Ok(date) = Date::parse(date_arg, &description) {
        return Ok(date.with_hms(0, 0, 0)?.assume_utc());
    }

    for datetime_format in [
        "[year]-[month]-[day] [hour]:[minute]",
        "[year]-[month]-[day] [hour]:[minute]:[second]",
        "[year]-[month]-[day]T[hour]:[minute]",
        "[year]-[month]-[day]T[hour]:[minute]:[second]",
    ] {
        let description = format_description::parse_borrowed::<2>(datetime_format)?;
        if let Ok(datetime) = PrimitiveDateTime::parse(date_arg, &description) {
            return Ok(datetime.assume_utc());
        }
    }
    bail!(
        "failed to parse --{}-date option parameter `{}`. supported format is `YYYY-MM-DD[ \
         HH:DD[:SS]]`",
        option_name,
        date_arg
    );
}

fn parse_split_state(split_state_arg: &str) -> anyhow::Result<SplitState> {
    let split_state = match split_state_arg.to_lowercase().as_str() {
        "staged" => SplitState::Staged,
        "published" => SplitState::Published,
        "marked" => SplitState::MarkedForDeletion,
        _ => bail!(format!(
            "unknown split state `{split_state_arg}`. possible values are `staged`, `published`, \
             and `marked`"
        )),
    };
    Ok(split_state)

View on GitHub (pinned to a39730c5cd)

Solutions

Rewrite the value as `YYYY-MM-DD`, e.g. `--start-date 2024-01-01`.
If a time is needed, use `YYYY-MM-DD HH:DD` or `YYYY-MM-DD HH:DD:SS` with a space separator, e.g. `--end-date "2024-01-01 10:30:00"`.
Drop timezone suffixes (`Z`, `+00:00`) and `T` separators; values are assumed UTC.
Convert epoch timestamps to UTC wall-clock form before passing them.

Example fix

// before
quickwit split list --index my-index --start-date 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z
// after
quickwit split list --index my-index --start-date "2024-01-01 00:00:00"

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const DATE_RE = /^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}( \d{2}:\d{2}(:\d{2})?)?$/;
function validateSplitListDate(value: string): string | null {
  return DATE_RE.test(value) ? null : `use YYYY-MM-DD[ HH:DD[:SS]], got: ${value}`;
}

Type guard

function isQuickwitDate(v: string): boolean {
  return /^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}( \d{2}:\d{2}(:\d{2})?)?$/.test(v);
}

Try / catch

// Match the parse failure and normalize to the accepted format before retrying
const res = await run(cmd);
if (res.code === 1 && /failed to parse --.*-date option/.test(res.stderr)) {
  const normalized = rawDate.replace("T", " ").replace(/(Z|[+-]\d{2}:?\d{2})$/, "").slice(0, 19);
  return run(cmd.replace(rawDate, normalized));
}

Prevention

Always emit dates as `YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS` UTC when generating CLI commands.
Strip `T` separators, `Z`, and timezone offsets before passing dates to Quickwit.
Convert epoch timestamps to UTC date strings in the producing script.
Quote date arguments containing spaces in shell scripts.

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a date that is ISO-8601-with-T (`2024-01-01T10:00:00`), includes timezone offsets (`2024-01-01T10:00:00Z`), epoch millis (`1704067200`), or slash-formatted dates (`01/01/2024`) to `--start-date` or `--end-date` on `quickwit split list`.

Common situations: Copy-pasting RFC3339/ISO timestamps from logs or APIs (with `T` and `Z`) into the CLI; using Unix epoch values from monitoring dashboards; locale-formatted dates; forgetting that the separator must be a space, not `T`.

Understand the failure class

Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of quickwit-oss/quickwit@a39730c5cd (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b5c1f69773fc2d9f. Report an issue: GitHub.