What causes "Task not found: ${taskId}" in ruvnet/ruflo?

Verify with taskManager.getTask(taskId) before assigning

Task not found: ${taskId}

Error message

Task not found: ${taskId}

What it means

TaskManager.assignTask() resolves taskId through its in-memory tasks Map and throws when absent, before setting assignedAgent and status='assigned'. Only tasks created via createTask() (which mints a secure ID) exist in the map, so foreign or stale IDs cannot be assigned.

Source

Thrown at v3/@claude-flow/shared/src/core/orchestrator/task-manager.ts:151

    if (filter) {
      if (filter.status) {
        tasks = tasks.filter(t => t.status === filter.status);
      }
      if (filter.type) {
        tasks = tasks.filter(t => t.type === filter.type);
      }
      if (filter.assignedAgent) {
        tasks = tasks.filter(t => t.assignedAgent === filter.assignedAgent);
      }
    }

    return tasks;
  }

  async assignTask(taskId: string, agentId: string): Promise<void> {
    const task = this.tasks.get(taskId);
    if (!task) {
      throw new Error(`Task not found: ${taskId}`);
    }

    task.assignedAgent = agentId;
    task.status = 'assigned';

    this.eventBus.emit(SystemEventTypes.TASK_ASSIGNED, {
      taskId,
      agentId,
    });
  }

  async startTask(taskId: string): Promise<void> {
    const task = this.tasks.get(taskId);
    if (!task) {
      throw new Error(`Task not found: ${taskId}`);
    }

    task.status = 'running';

View on GitHub (pinned to fa13ee4ad6)

Solutions

Verify with taskManager.getTask(taskId) before assigning
Create the task first via createTask() and use the returned task.id
Ensure producer and consumer share the same TaskManager instance or re-create tasks locally

Example fix

// before
await taskManager.assignTask(taskId, agentId);

// after
if (taskManager.getTask(taskId)) {
  await taskManager.assignTask(taskId, agentId);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const task = taskManager.getTask(taskId);
if (!task) throw new Error(`unknown task ${taskId}`);
await taskManager.assignTask(taskId, agentId);

Type guard

const task = taskManager.getTask(taskId);
if (task && task.status === 'pending') {
  await taskManager.assignTask(task.id, agentId);
}

Try / catch

try {
  await taskManager.assignTask(taskId, agentId);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message.startsWith('Task not found')) {
    // drop or re-create the task; the ID is unknown to this manager
  } else throw e;
}

Prevention

Only use IDs returned by createTask() on the same TaskManager instance
Check getTask() before every state transition
Do not ship task IDs across process boundaries without re-creating tasks locally

When it happens

Trigger: Calling assignTask(taskId, agentId) with an ID not returned by createTask(); assigning tasks whose manager instance was recreated (e.g. after a restart); race where the task was cancelled and removed concurrently.

Common situations: Distributing task IDs via queues/IPC and consuming them in a process that never created those tasks; test setups reusing hard-coded IDs; multiple TaskManager instances sharding work.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Not found" and "does not exist" errors: why "Task not found", "No such folder", and "Can't find" fire when a lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 14 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ruvnet/ruflo@fa13ee4ad6 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/698ddd4bc9fd8e49. Report an issue: GitHub.