zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw · error

providers.models.{profile_name}.pricing.{key}: value must be

Error message

providers.models.{profile_name}.pricing.{key}: value must be >= 0.0 (got {value})

What it means

In the same pricing-map loop as the NaN check, any value < 0.0 bails with the key and value printed. Negative prices corrupt cost accounting (they produce negative invoices) and almost always indicate a unit or sign mistake rather than intent. Both checks run per key, so a map with several bad values reports the first one.

Source

Thrown at crates/zeroclaw-config/src/schema.rs:21637

                            .with_attrs(::serde_json::json!({
                                "profile": profile_name,
                                "temperature": temp,
                                "error": format!("{}", e),
                            })),
                        "providers.models.<alias>.temperature rejected"
                    );
                    anyhow::Error::msg(format!("providers.models.{profile_name}.temperature: {e}"))
                })?;
            }

            for (key, value) in &profile.pricing {
                if value.is_nan() {
                    anyhow::bail!(
                        "providers.models.{profile_name}.pricing.{key}: value must not be NaN"
                    );
                }
                if *value < 0.0 {
                    anyhow::bail!(
                        "providers.models.{profile_name}.pricing.{key}: value must be >= 0.0 (got {value})"
                    );
                }
            }
        }

        // Non-fatal validation warnings: surfaced both via tracing (CLI sees
        // on stderr) and via Config::collect_warnings (gateway HTTP returns
        // structured to dashboard callers). Single source of truth lives in
        // collect_warnings; emit each one to tracing here so the existing
        // log behavior is preserved.
        for w in self.collect_warnings() {
            ::zeroclaw_log::record!(
                WARN,
                ::zeroclaw_log::Event::new(module_path!(), ::zeroclaw_log::Action::Note)
                    .with_outcome(::zeroclaw_log::EventOutcome::Unknown)
                    .with_attrs(::serde_json::json!({"path": w.path, "code": w.code})),
                &format!("{}", w.message)

View on GitHub (pinned to 88bb9c8533)

Solutions

  1. Correct the sign of the named key
  2. Check unit scale: many vendors quote $/1M tokens — convert to the per-token figure the config expects before storing
  3. Clamp generated prices at 0.0 (pricing config generators should emit `v.max(0.0)`)
  4. Re-run validation to catch remaining keys — only the first failing key is reported per run

Example fix

# before
[providers.models.gpt-x.pricing]
input = -0.001
output = 0.002

# after
[providers.models.gpt-x.pricing]
input = 0.001
output = 0.002
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

fn pricing_nonneg_precheck(cfg: &zeroclaw_config::Config) -> Result<(), String> {
    for (name, profile) in &cfg.providers.models.entries {
        for (key, value) in &profile.pricing {
            if *value < 0.0 {
                return Err(format!("providers.models.{name}.pricing.{key} = {value} < 0"));
            }
        }
    }
    Ok(())
}

Type guard

fn pricing_is_nonnegative(pricing: &std::collections::HashMap<String, f64>) -> bool {
    pricing.values().all(|v| *v >= 0.0)
}

Try / catch

if let Err(err) = config.validate() {
    if err.to_string().contains("must be >= 0.0") {
        // fix the sign/unit of the named key (check $/1M vs per-token scale) and reload
    }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Set any pricing key to a negative number, e.g. `input = -0.001`, or generate pricing from arithmetic that underflows to a tiny negative value (per-1M to per-token conversion bugs).

Common situations: Transcribing vendor pricing sheets where credits/discounts are negative; spreadsheet copy-paste carrying minus signs; float arithmetic like `x/1000 - epsilon` producing -1e-19.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw@88bb9c8533 (2026-08-23). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4b0dfc97d4152411. Report an issue: GitHub.