temporalio/temporal · error

only comparison and "and" expression is supported

Error message

only comparison and "and" expression is supported

What it means

Filestore variant of the unsupported-expression error, thrown by filestore queryParser.convertWhereExpr when the WHERE clause uses anything other than ComparisonExpr, AndExpr, or ParenExpr. The filestore visibility parser supports only this small SQL subset against the local filesystem blobstore.

Source

Thrown at common/archiver/filestore/query_parser.go:84

		return nil, err
	}
	return parsedQuery, nil
}

func (p *queryParser) convertWhereExpr(expr sqlparser.Expr, parsedQuery *parsedQuery) error {
	if expr == nil {
		return errors.New("where expression is nil")
	}

	switch expr := expr.(type) {
	case *sqlparser.ComparisonExpr:
		return p.convertComparisonExpr(expr, parsedQuery)
	case *sqlparser.AndExpr:
		return p.convertAndExpr(expr, parsedQuery)
	case *sqlparser.ParenExpr:
		return p.convertParenExpr(expr, parsedQuery)
	default:
		return errors.New("only comparison and \"and\" expression is supported")
	}
}

func (p *queryParser) convertParenExpr(parenExpr *sqlparser.ParenExpr, parsedQuery *parsedQuery) error {
	return p.convertWhereExpr(parenExpr.Expr, parsedQuery)
}

func (p *queryParser) convertAndExpr(andExpr *sqlparser.AndExpr, parsedQuery *parsedQuery) error {
	if err := p.convertWhereExpr(andExpr.Left, parsedQuery); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return p.convertWhereExpr(andExpr.Right, parsedQuery)
}

func (p *queryParser) convertComparisonExpr(compExpr *sqlparser.ComparisonExpr, parsedQuery *parsedQuery) error {
	colName, ok := compExpr.Left.(*sqlparser.ColName)
	if !ok {
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid filter name: %s", sqlparser.String(compExpr.Left))

View on GitHub (pinned to bde624efd1)

Solutions

1. Rewrite using only equality/range comparisons joined with AND, e.g. `WorkflowId = 'my-workflow'`.
2. Split OR conditions into multiple queries and merge results client-side.
3. If richer query semantics are needed, switch the namespace visibility store to Elasticsearch or SQL.
4. Use parentheses freely — ParenExpr is supported and just recurses into the inner expression.

Example fix

// before
q := "RunId = 'abc' OR WorkflowId = 'def'" // error: only comparison and "and" expression is supported

// after
q := "RunId = 'abc'" // plus a second query for WorkflowId = 'def'

if strings.Contains(strings.ToLower(query), " or ") {
	return nil, errors.New("filestore archival visibility supports only comparisons joined by AND")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Parse("WorkflowId = 'x' OR RunId = 'y'") (OrExpr), NOT expressions, LIKE/function expressions, or any other sqlparser node type reaching the default branch via Parse, convertParenExpr, or convertAndExpr.

Common situations: Users attempt OR filters or keyword searches against filestore archival visibility; queries written for Elasticsearch visibility pasted into a filestore-backed namespace.

Related errors

• only comparison and "and" expression is supported
• where expression is nil
• SearchPrecision is required when searching for a StartTime o
• where expression is nil
• unknown archiver scheme

AI-assisted analysis of temporalio/temporal@bde624efd1 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/16967768c5791c29. Report an issue: GitHub.