remotion-dev/remotion · error · Error

The `siteName` must match the RegExp `/${VALID_SITE_NAME_RE.

Error message

The `siteName` must match the RegExp `/${VALID_SITE_NAME_RE.source}/`. You passed: ${siteName}. Check for invalid characters.

What it means

Thrown by validateSiteName() in @remotion/lambda when siteName is a string but contains characters outside the allowed set. The allowed RegExp is /^[-0-9a-zA-Z!_.*'()]+$/ (letters, digits, '-', '_', '.', '*', "'", '(', ')', '!'). siteName feeds into S3 bucket/key naming where AWS forbids many characters.

Source

Thrown at packages/lambda/src/shared/validate-site-name.ts:23

		return;
	}

	if (typeof siteName !== 'string') {
		throw new TypeError(
			`The 'siteName' argument must be a string if provided, but is ${JSON.stringify(
				siteName,
			)}`,
		);
	}

	if (siteName === '.' || siteName === '..') {
		throw new Error(
			'The `siteName` must not be `.` or `..`. You passed: ' + siteName + '.',
		);
	}

	if (!VALID_SITE_NAME_RE.test(siteName)) {
		throw new Error(
			'The `siteName` must match the RegExp `/' +
				VALID_SITE_NAME_RE.source +
				'/`. You passed: ' +
				siteName +
				'. Check for invalid characters.',
		);
	}
};

View on GitHub (pinned to 78fe4bb3fd)

Solutions

Restrict siteName to alphanumerics and hyphens/underscores (the safest subset), e.g. 'my-project'.
Slugify free-form input before passing: name.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9-]+/g, '-').
Ensure the string is non-empty; pass undefined for the default.

Example fix

// before
await deploySite({ siteName: 'My Project v2!' }); // spaces are invalid

// after
const siteName = 'My Project v2!'.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9-_.]+/g, '-');
await deploySite({ siteName });

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const SITE_NAME_RE = /^[-0-9a-zA-Z!_.*'()]+$/;
function toSiteName(raw: string): string | undefined {
  const slug = raw.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9-_.]+/g, '-').replace(/^-+|-+$/g, '');
  return SITE_NAME_RE.test(slug) ? slug : undefined;
}

Type guard

const isValidSiteName = (v: unknown): v is string =>
  typeof v === 'string' && /^[-0-9a-zA-Z!_.*'()]+$/.test(v);

Prevention

Restrict site names to the safe subset (alphanumeric, '-', '_').
Run a slugify step on any free-form input.
Reject the empty string explicitly (it fails the + quantifier).

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a siteName containing spaces, slashes, '@', '#', '&', '+', commas, colons, Unicode, or any character not in the allowed class. Also thrown for the empty string '' (the regex requires at least one character via +).

Common situations: Using a project name with spaces ('My Project'), an email ('team@corp.com'), a URL-style slug with '/', or a localized/Unicode name. Empty string from an untrimmed empty input.

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 remotion-dev/remotion@78fe4bb3fd (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bd74b5768e10a928. Report an issue: GitHub.