temporalio/temporal · error

field Namespace is empty

Error message

field Namespace is empty

What it means

errEmptyNamespace is a sentinel in common/archiver/util.go returned by ValidateHistoryArchiveRequest and ValidateVisibilityArchivalRequest when the request's Namespace (the namespace *name*, distinct from NamespaceId) is empty. Both the ID and the human-readable name are recorded in archived data, so the name is required.

Source

Thrown at common/archiver/util.go:13

package archiver

import (
	"errors"

	archiverspb "go.temporal.io/server/api/archiver/v1"
	"go.temporal.io/server/common/log"
	"go.temporal.io/server/common/log/tag"
)

var (
	errEmptyNamespaceID      = errors.New("field NamespaceId is empty")
	errEmptyNamespace        = errors.New("field Namespace is empty")
	errEmptyWorkflowID       = errors.New("field WorkflowId is empty")
	errEmptyRunID            = errors.New("field RunId is empty")
	errInvalidPageSize       = errors.New("field PageSize should be greater than 0")
	errEmptyWorkflowTypeName = errors.New("field WorkflowTypeName is empty")
	errEmptyStartTime        = errors.New("field StartTime is empty")
	errEmptyCloseTime        = errors.New("field CloseTime is empty")
)

// TagLoggerWithArchiveHistoryRequestAndURI tags logger with fields in the archive history request and the URI
func TagLoggerWithArchiveHistoryRequestAndURI(logger log.Logger, request *ArchiveHistoryRequest, URI string) log.Logger {
	return log.With(
		logger,
		tag.ShardID(request.ShardID),
		tag.ArchivalRequestNamespaceID(request.NamespaceID),
		tag.ArchivalRequestNamespace(request.Namespace),
		tag.ArchivalRequestWorkflowID(request.WorkflowID),
		tag.ArchivalRequestRunID(request.RunID),
		tag.ArchivalRequestBranchToken(request.BranchToken),

View on GitHub (pinned to bde624efd1)

Solutions

1. Set the Namespace field to the namespace name alongside NamespaceID before validation.
2. Resolve the name from the namespace registry/cache if only the ID is available at the call site.
3. Add an upstream check that both NamespaceID and Namespace are non-empty when constructing archival requests.

Example fix

// before
rec := &archiverspb.VisibilityRecord{NamespaceId: nsID, WorkflowId: wid, RunId: rid}
err := archiver.ValidateVisibilityArchivalRequest(rec)
// after
rec := &archiverspb.VisibilityRecord{NamespaceId: nsID, Namespace: nsName, WorkflowId: wid, RunId: rid}
err := archiver.ValidateVisibilityArchivalRequest(rec)

func validateNamespacePair(nsID, ns string) error {
    if nsID == "" || ns == "" {
        return errors.New("both NamespaceId and Namespace must be set")
    }
    return nil
}

if err := archiver.ValidateVisibilityArchivalRequest(rec); err != nil {
    if errors.Is(err, archiver.ErrEmptyNamespace) {
        return nil, status.Error(codes.InvalidArgument, "Namespace (name) is required")
    }
    return nil, err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling ValidateHistoryArchiveRequest with ArchiveHistoryRequest.Namespace == "" or ValidateVisibilityArchivalRequest with VisibilityRecord.GetNamespace() == ""; typical when a caller sets NamespaceID but forgets Namespace.

Common situations: Custom archiver implementations building VisibilityRecord protos by hand; migration code that populates only the new ID-style field; namespace name lookup returning empty after namespace was deleted or renamed.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• field NamespaceId is empty
• field WorkflowId is empty
• WorkflowId or WorkflowType is required in query
• only one of WorkflowId or WorkflowType can be specified in a
• only one of StartTime or CloseTime can be specified in a que

AI-assisted analysis of temporalio/temporal@bde624efd1 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c0bb67b74e06cfa7. Report an issue: GitHub.