thanos-io/thanos · error

strategy , update rules

Error message

strategy %s, update rules

What it means

Raised in Manager.Update when the per-strategy Prometheus rules.Manager Update call fails — i.e., the underlying rule groups for that strategy failed Prometheus parsing, validation, or loading (bad expressions, duplicate group names, invalid intervals). The error wraps the upstream manager's error with 'strategy %s, update rules'.

Solutions

1. Fix the rule file syntax/semantics named in the wrapped error (invalid PromQL, duplicate groups, bad durations)
2. Validate rule files with promtool before deploying
3. Compare with the previous working rule files to find the regression

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at pkg/rules/manager.go:394 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of thanos-io/thanos@35b8b99117 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ee8abcc7204d8274. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at pkg/rules/manager.go:394

				errs.Add(errors.Wrapf(err, "write file %v", newFn))
				continue
			}
			filesByStrategy[s] = append(filesByStrategy[s], newFn)
			ruleFiles[newFn] = fn
		}
	}

	m.mtx.Lock()
	for s, fs := range filesByStrategy {
		mgr, ok := m.mgrs[s]
		if !ok {
			errs.Add(errors.Errorf("no manager found for %v", s))
			continue
		}
		// We add external labels in `pkg/alert.Queue`.
		if err := mgr.Update(evalInterval, fs, m.extLset, m.externalURL, nil); err != nil {
			// TODO(bwplotka): Prometheus logs all error details. Fix it upstream to have consistent error handling.
			errs.Add(errors.Wrapf(err, "strategy %s, update rules", s))
			continue
		}
	}
	m.ruleFiles = ruleFiles
	m.mtx.Unlock()

	return errs.Err()
}

// Rules returns specified rules from manager. This is used by gRPC and locally for HTTP and UI purposes.
func (m *Manager) Rules(r *rulespb.RulesRequest, s rulespb.Rules_RulesServer) (err error) {
	groups := m.protoRuleGroups()

	pgs := make([]*rulespb.RuleGroup, 0, len(groups))
	for _, g := range groups {
		// UTC needed due to https://github.com/gogo/protobuf/issues/519.
		g.LastEvaluation = g.LastEvaluation.UTC()
		if r.Type == rulespb.RulesRequest_ALL {

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