stablyai/orca · error

${name} must be a positive integer, received ${value}

Error message

${name} must be a positive integer, received ${value}

What it means

Thrown by the branch-compare-head benchmark when ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS or _WARMUP is not a safe positive integer. Uses Number(env) and Number.isSafeInteger, so NaN (non-numeric/empty), floats, zero/negative, and values beyond MAX_SAFE_INTEGER all fail. Defaults are 8 iterations and 2 warmup because each iteration spawns many git processes.

Source

Thrown at config/scripts/branch-compare-head-benchmark.mjs:32

// Both arms are compared for identical resolved values before timing.
//
// Run with:  node config/scripts/branch-compare-head-benchmark.mjs
import { execFile } from 'node:child_process'
import { performance } from 'node:perf_hooks'
import { fileURLToPath } from 'node:url'
import { readBranchCompareHead } from '../../src/shared/git-branch-compare-head.ts'

const REPO_ROOT = fileURLToPath(new URL('../..', import.meta.url))
const ITERATIONS = Number(process.env.ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS ?? '8')
const WARMUP = Number(process.env.ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_WARMUP ?? '2')
const ROUNDS = 6

for (const [name, value] of [
  ['ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS', ITERATIONS],
  ['ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_WARMUP', WARMUP]
]) {
  if (!Number.isSafeInteger(value) || value <= 0) {
    throw new Error(`${name} must be a positive integer, received ${value}`)
  }
}

function git(args) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    execFile('git', args, { cwd: REPO_ROOT, maxBuffer: 64 * 1024 * 1024 }, (error, stdout) =>
      error ? reject(error) : resolve(stdout.trim())
    )
  })
}

async function probeOid(qualifiedRef) {
  try {
    const out = await git(['rev-parse', '--verify', '--quiet', `${qualifiedRef}^{commit}`])
    return out.length > 0 ? out : null
  } catch {
    return null
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to 1136503c6a)

Solutions

1. Set each env var to a positive integer, e.g. ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS=8 ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_WARMUP=2 (defaults).
2. Unset both to use the defaults — note each iteration spawns ~8 git processes so larger values are slow.
3. Validate in CI with ^[1-9][0-9]*$ before running.
4. Keep iterations modest (<=50) — this benchmark times real git spawns, so wall-clock grows linearly.

Example fix

// before
// ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS='' node config/scripts/branch-compare-head-benchmark.mjs
// -> 'ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS must be a positive integer, received NaN'

// after
// unset ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS
// node config/scripts/branch-compare-head-benchmark.mjs

function readPositiveSafeIntEnv(name, fallback) {
  const raw = process.env[name]
  if (raw == null || raw === '') return fallback
  const n = Number(raw)
  if (!Number.isSafeInteger(n) || n <= 0) {
    throw new Error(`${name} must be a positive safe integer, got '${raw}'`)
  }
  return n
}
// const ITERATIONS = readPositiveSafeIntEnv('ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS', 8)

function isPositiveSafeInteger(value) {
  return Number.isSafeInteger(value) && value > 0
}

When it happens

Trigger: Setting ORCA_BRANCH_COMPARE_BENCH_ITERATIONS to a non-numeric string, a float, zero, or a very large number; unsetting and the env layer returned an empty string instead of undefined.

Common situations: Operator bumps iterations to '100' for a longer run but typos to '1o0'; CI matrix injects an empty string for an unset var; attempting to scale iterations high enough to exceed MAX_SAFE_INTEGER.

Related errors

• ${name} must be a positive integer, received ${value}
• ${name} must be a positive integer, received ${value}
• ORCA_ADVERTISED_URL_BENCH_ROUNDS must be even
• no benchmark file exists at both HEAD and HEAD~1 in this che
• ORCA_REPLAY_BENCH_SECONDS must be positive, received ${SECON

AI-assisted analysis of stablyai/orca@1136503c6a (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/33a16024fa07dbb4. Report an issue: GitHub.