rego_parse_error: unexpected identifier token: expected \n or ; or }

This error is raised when the Rego parser encounters an unexpected identifier token.

An identifier token represents a name assigned to variables, rules, and references in the policy. In parsing, the identifier tokens are different from other tokens like keywords.

This error is typically caused by misplaced whitespace or by poorly formatted code.

Stage	Category	Message
parsing	rego_parse_error	unexpected identifier token: expected \n or ; or }

Examples

A simple example of a policy that contains this error follows, note the missing . between input and roles:

package policy

import rego.v1

allow if {
	"admin" in input roles
}

The code above will raise the following error, helpfully showing the location in question:

1 error occurred: policy.rego:6: rego_parse_error: unexpected identifier token: expected \n or ; or }
	"admin" in input roles
	                 ^

Another case when this error can occur is when a statement has been added to the end of another on the same line, this happens a lot when copying and pasting. In the example below, the endswith email check is meant to be on the next line:

package policy

import rego.v1

allow if {
	"admin" in input.roles endswith(input.email, "@example.com")
}

This should be written like this, with the statements on separate lines:

package policy

import rego.v1

allow if {
	"admin" in input.roles
	endswith(input.email, "@example.com")
}

How To Fix It

While the fix for this error depends on other elements on the line of Rego in question, the error message will always point to the location of the error to get you started.

Typically, the way to resolve this to find and correct misplaced whitespace using the location in the error message.

This can be tricky in larger files and often happens when moving code between files. We recommend migrating functions and rules incrementally to reduce the risk of this happening.

Community

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