ruvnet/ruflo · error

Consensus is disabled

Error message

Consensus is disabled

What it means

FederationHub.propose() throws immediately when the hub was configured with enableConsensus: false — no federation-wide vote is created and the proposal never reaches peers. Consensus (propose/vote/decide across federated swarms) is an opt-out feature that defaults to true, so this error means the running configuration explicitly disabled it.

Source

Thrown at v3/@claude-flow/swarm/src/federation-hub.js:435

            }
        }
        return sent;
    }
    /**
     * Get recent messages
     */
    getMessages(limit = 100) {
        return this.messages.slice(-limit);
    }
    // ==========================================================================
    // Federation Consensus
    // ==========================================================================
    /**
     * Propose a value for federation-wide consensus
     */
    async propose(proposerId, type, value, timeoutMs = 30000) {
        if (!this.config.enableConsensus) {
            throw new Error('Consensus is disabled');
        }
        const proposal = {
            id: `proposal_${Date.now()}_${Math.random().toString(36).substr(2, 9)}`,
            proposerId,
            type,
            value,
            votes: new Map([[proposerId, true]]),
            status: 'pending',
            createdAt: new Date(),
            expiresAt: new Date(Date.now() + timeoutMs),
        };
        this.proposals.set(proposal.id, proposal);
        this.stats.consensusProposals++;
        this.emitEvent('consensus_started', proposerId);
        // Request votes from all active swarms
        await this.broadcast(proposerId, {
            type: 'vote_request',
            proposalId: proposal.id,

View on GitHub (pinned to fa13ee4ad6)

Solutions

1. Set enableConsensus: true in the FederationHub config where federation-wide decisions are needed
2. If consensus must stay disabled, guard the call site: check the hub config / feature flag before propose()
3. Audit the effective config after construction (log this.config or the merged result) to confirm the flag's actual value
4. Keep one source of truth for the flag (env or config service) instead of duplicating it per environment

Example fix

// before
const hub = new FederationHub({ ...opts, enableConsensus: false });
await hub.propose(this.id, 'scale-up', { nodes: 3 }); // throws 'Consensus is disabled'

// after
const hub = new FederationHub({ ...opts, enableConsensus: true });
await hub.propose(this.id, 'scale-up', { nodes: 3 });

// or gate the call:
if (hub.config.enableConsensus !== false) {
  await hub.propose(this.id, 'scale-up', { nodes: 3 });
} else {
  applyLocally({ nodes: 3 }); // non-consensus fallback path
}

// Check the flag through the hub's exposed config before proposing:
if (hub.config?.enableConsensus === false) {
  return applyLocalDecision(value); // skip consensus path entirely
}
await hub.propose(proposerId, type, value);

function consensusEnabled(hub) { return hub.config?.enableConsensus !== false; } // default true

try { await hub.propose(id, type, value); }
catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message === 'Consensus is disabled') {
    return fallbackToSingleHubDecision(value); // explicit degraded mode
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: new FederationHub({ enableConsensus: false }) (or a config merge that evaluated the flag false) followed by any hub.propose(...) call Deployments that copied a minimal config object overriding defaults — the constructor spreads DEFAULT_CONFIG, but any explicit false wins Feature-flag/config drift between environments: consensus disabled in staging config, code path still calls propose() Shared coordinator code (e.g., unified-coordinator) that always calls propose() while some hubs run without consensus

Common situations: Operators disabling consensus for 'single-hub mode' or to cut overhead, later enabling features that need it Config templating tools that serialize all booleans explicitly, turning the default-true into explicit false by accident Version upgrades where a previously unguarded propose() call now runs against a consensus-disabled hub

Related errors

• Consensus is disabled
• WG mesh layer not initialized (set config.wgMesh = true and
• Unsupported federation signature mode: ${String(signatureMod
• Unknown consensus algorithm: ${this.config.algorithm}
• SSRF guard: invalid URL — ${rawUrl}

AI-assisted analysis of ruvnet/ruflo@fa13ee4ad6 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b60b7ff65ffd6db6. Report an issue: GitHub.