vxcontrol/pentagi · error

invalid UserStatus: %s

Error message

invalid UserStatus: %s

What it means

UserStatus.Valid() is a GORM model validation guard for the users table in backend/pkg/server/models/users.go:32. It only accepts the enum values UserStatusCreated, UserStatusActive, and UserStatusBlocked; any other string carried in a User's Status field is rejected with this formatted error. It runs via the Validate(db) callback whenever a User record is created or updated, so a bad status blocks persistence instead of writing corrupt data.

Source

Thrown at backend/pkg/server/models/users.go:32

type UserStatus string

const (
	UserStatusCreated UserStatus = "created"
	UserStatusActive  UserStatus = "active"
	UserStatusBlocked UserStatus = "blocked"
)

func (s UserStatus) String() string {
	return string(s)
}

// Valid is function to control input/output data
func (s UserStatus) Valid() error {
	switch s {
	case UserStatusCreated, UserStatusActive, UserStatusBlocked:
		return nil
	default:
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid UserStatus: %s", s)
	}
}

// Validate is function to use callback to control input/output data
func (s UserStatus) Validate(db *gorm.DB) {
	if err := s.Valid(); err != nil {
		db.AddError(err)
	}
}

type UserType string

const (
	UserTypeLocal UserType = "local"
	UserTypeOAuth UserType = "oauth"
	UserTypeAPI   UserType = "api"
)

View on GitHub (pinned to ea665308ba)

Solutions

  1. Set the user's Status to one of the exported constants (UserStatusCreated, UserStatusActive, UserStatusBlocked) before saving.
  2. If the value comes from external input, map/normalize it to a known constant and reject unknown values at the API boundary.
  3. If a new status is genuinely required, add a UserStatus* constant and extend the switch in Valid() rather than passing a raw string.

Example fix

// before
user := models.User{Name: "alice"} // Status empty
orm.Create(&user) // invalid UserStatus: 

// after
user := models.User{Name: "alice", Status: models.UserStatusActive}
orm.Create(&user)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if err := models.UserStatus(status).Valid(); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("invalid status %q: %w", status, err)
}

Type guard

func validUserStatus(s models.UserStatus) bool {
    switch s {
    case models.UserStatusCreated, models.UserStatusActive, models.UserStatusBlocked:
        return true
    }
    return false
}

Try / catch

if err := orm.Create(&user).Error; err != nil {
    if strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "invalid UserStatus") {
        return fmt.Errorf("bad status %q: %w", user.Status, err)
    }
    return err
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Saving (Create/Save/Updates) or serializing a User whose Status field is an empty string, a hand-written string like "actve", or any value not exactly equal to one of the three accepted enum constants.

Common situations: Constructing a User struct in code or tests without initializing Status; inserting rows via raw SQL or an external service that writes status values not present in the Go enum set; refactoring or DB migration that renames status strings without updating the constants.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of vxcontrol/pentagi@ea665308ba (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ad5906438fff148b. Report an issue: GitHub.