thedotmack/claude-mem · error

Invalid operation

Error message

Invalid operation

What it means

GET /api/instructions validates the operation query parameter against the ALLOWED_OPERATIONS allow-list; a value outside the list returns 400 'Invalid operation'. The topic check runs first, so a bad topic masks a bad operation with 'Invalid topic'.

Source

Thrown at src/services/server/Server.ts:298

          message: 'Worker is still initializing, please retry',
        });
      }
    });

    this.app.get('/api/version', (_req: Request, res: Response) => {
      res.status(200).json({ version: BUILT_IN_VERSION });
    });

    this.app.get('/api/instructions', (req: Request, res: Response) => {
      const topic = (req.query.topic as string) || 'all';
      const operation = req.query.operation as string | undefined;

      if (topic && !ALLOWED_TOPICS.includes(topic)) {
        return res.status(400).json({ error: 'Invalid topic' });
      }

      if (operation && !ALLOWED_OPERATIONS.includes(operation)) {
        return res.status(400).json({ error: 'Invalid operation' });
      }

      if (operation) {
        const cached = cachedOperationContent.get(operation);
        if (cached === undefined) {
          logger.debug('HTTP', 'Instruction file not cached at boot', { operation });
          return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Instruction not found' });
        }
        return res.json({ content: [{ type: 'text', text: cached }] });
      }

      if (cachedSkillMd === null) {
        logger.debug('HTTP', 'SKILL.md not cached at boot', { topic });
        return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Instruction not found' });
      }
      const sectionText = this.extractInstructionSection(cachedSkillMd, topic);
      res.json({ content: [{ type: 'text', text: sectionText }] });
    });

View on GitHub (pinned to 8bc631a71a)

Solutions

1. Use an operation name from ALLOWED_OPERATIONS exactly
2. If you want topical content rather than an operation, use ?topic= instead
3. Inspect ALLOWED_OPERATIONS in the server source for the current list

Example fix

// before
fetch(`${base}/api/instructions?operation=summarize-all`); // 400 Invalid operation

// after
fetch(`${base}/api/instructions?operation=summarize`); // 200

const ALLOWED_OPERATIONS = new Set([/* mirror ALLOWED_OPERATIONS from the server */ 'summarize', 'recall']);

function operationUrl(base: string, operation: string): string | null {
  if (!ALLOWED_OPERATIONS.has(operation)) return null; // skip the call entirely
  return `${base}/api/instructions?operation=${encodeURIComponent(operation)}`;
}

function isInvalidParameter(status: number, body: unknown, field: 'topic' | 'operation'): body is { error: string } {
  return status === 400 && typeof body === 'object' && body !== null && (body as { error?: string }).error === `Invalid ${field}`;
}

const res = await fetch(`${base}/api/instructions?operation=${op}`);
if (res.status === 400) {
  const body = await res.json().catch(() => ({}));
  if (body.error === 'Invalid operation') throw new Error(`operation "${op}" not supported by this server version`);
  if (body.error === 'Invalid topic') throw new Error('topic param is also wrong — fix it first');
  throw new Error(`unexpected 400: ${JSON.stringify(body)}`);
}

When it happens

Trigger: GET /api/instructions?operation=<value> where value is not an allowed operation name — invented names, typos, or operations added/removed in a different server version.

Common situations: Tooling hardcoding operation names that drift across releases; mixing up topic and operation parameters; copied URLs from docs for a different version.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid query parameter" / "Failed to parse value of ...": fixing bad query string parameters across APIs — this error's family across 36 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid topic
• INVALID_CORPUS_NAME
• BadRequest
• ValidationError
• ValidationError

AI-assisted analysis of thedotmack/claude-mem@8bc631a71a (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/25d0bf1d7e229881. Report an issue: GitHub.