sipeed/picoclaw · error

name is required

Error message

name is required

What it means

SkillInfo.validate rejects a skill whose Name is empty. Names are mandatory metadata (SKILL.md frontmatter / registry entries) and, when present, must additionally satisfy ValidateSkillName (pattern ^[a-zA-Z0-9]+(-[a-zA-Z0-9]+)*$, max 64). Empty name and invalid pattern are joined via errors.Join, so both can appear in one error.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skills/loader.go:43

	MaxDescriptionLength = 1024
)

type SkillMetadata struct {
	Name        string `json:"name"`
	Description string `json:"description"`
}

type SkillInfo struct {
	Name        string `json:"name"`
	Path        string `json:"path"`
	Source      string `json:"source"`
	Description string `json:"description"`
}

func (info SkillInfo) validate() error {
	var errs error
	if info.Name == "" {
		errs = errors.Join(errs, errors.New("name is required"))
	} else {
		if err := ValidateSkillName(info.Name); err != nil {
			errs = errors.Join(errs, err)
		}
	}

	if info.Description == "" {
		errs = errors.Join(errs, errors.New("description is required"))
	} else if len(info.Description) > MaxDescriptionLength {
		errs = errors.Join(errs, fmt.Errorf("description exceeds %d character", MaxDescriptionLength))
	}
	return errs
}

type SkillsLoader struct {
	workspace       string
	workspaceSkills string // workspace skills (project-level)
	globalSkills    string // global skills (~/.picoclaw/skills)

View on GitHub (pinned to 49183d7e8d)

Solutions

1. Add a name field to the SKILL.md frontmatter (or the skill payload), e.g. 'name: my-skill'
2. Use the directory-name convention: lowercase alphanumerics separated by single hyphens, <= 64 chars
3. If the name is present but still failing, check the separate pattern error also returned by validate()

Example fix

# before
---
description: does a thing
---

# after
---
name: my-skill
description: does a thing
---

// before loading skills
func validSkillInfo(info skills.SkillInfo) error { return info.ValidateIfExposed() }
// or inline: reject empty names early
if info.Name == "" { return fmt.Errorf("skill %s: name is required", info.Path) }

if err := info.Validate(); err != nil { // or the loader's validate path
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "name is required") {
        // fix SKILL.md frontmatter: add name field
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Registering or validating a SkillInfo with Name == "" — e.g. a SKILL.md whose YAML frontmatter lacks the name field, or a JSON skill payload with an empty/missing name key.

Common situations: Hand-written SKILL.md missing frontmatter; frontmatter uses a different key (title: instead of name:); programmatic skill registration passing an uninitialized struct.

Related errors

• description is required
• host cannot be empty
• host list contains an empty entry
• channel '%s' not found or not enabled
• no media store available: %w

AI-assisted analysis of sipeed/picoclaw@49183d7e8d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5e5ae6d28d3a8e6b. Report an issue: GitHub.