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salesforce-object-queryability

Distinguish the six real reasons a Salesforce query can 'fail', and the protocol for diagnosing before declaring: object doesn't exist, not queryable in edition, permission-denied, field-level errors, namespace prefix missing, API version mismatch. NOT for one object's own query restrictions, required filters or row caps - use apex/soql-object-limits-and-restrictions. NOT for a query that works but is slow - use data/soql-query-optimization.

• v1.1.0
• Salesforce Spring '25+
• Updated 2026-09-04
• Reliability
• Operational Excellence
• Security

• soql
• sobject
• tooling-api
• edition-limits
• api-version
• diagnostics
• agent-discipline

Open the skill folder on GitHub

Salesforce Object Queryability

Why this skill exists

A documented real-world incident: an AI agent diffing two users in a customer org tried to query PermissionSetGroupAssignment — an object that does not exist in any Salesforce edition. The query returned a 400 error. The agent collapsed this into "PSG not queryable in this org" and silently dropped the PSG dimension from the comparison. The resulting report was incomplete but looked complete.

The fix is disciplined failure classification. "Not queryable in this org" is a real category — but it's one of six possible reasons a query can fail, and the remediation is different for each.

Questions to Ask Before Configuring

Ask these before writing a verdict. Each one collapses at least one of the six modes, and each one traces to a gotcha in references/gotchas.md.

What a proper diagnosis adds over just reporting "the query failed": the caller gets one of eight closed verdicts with the probe evidence behind it, a named remediation they can act on, and an honest confidence — instead of a reason string that hides six different root causes and six different fixes.

The six failure modes

INVALID_TYPE is the most ambiguous code — it covers modes 1, 2, 5, and 6. The agent must do follow-up checks before declaring which.

Diagnostic protocol

When a query fails, run these checks in order:

Step 1 — Capture the full error payload

Don't collapse to "not queryable." Capture the HTTP status + errorCode + message. Salesforce error payloads are structured:

{
  "errorCode": "INVALID_TYPE",
  "message": "sObject type 'PermissionSetGroupAssignment' is not supported."
}

The message field disambiguates in most cases ("not supported" vs "insufficient access" vs "field does not exist").

Step 2 — Verify the object name exists

Run GET /services/data/vXX.0/sobjects/ to get the full list of accessible sObjects. Each entry carries a queryable boolean alongside name and keyPrefix — read it here rather than paying for a per-object describe. If the name is in the list but queryable is false, the object exists and has no query() call: that is not-queryable-on-this-surface, and no permission grant will change it (see references/gotchas.md gotcha 11). If the name isn't in the list:

• If it's close to a real name → typo (Mode 1). Fix and retry.
• If it's a managed-package object → probably missing namespace prefix (Mode 5).
• If it's a feature-gated object → edition limit (Mode 2).

Step 3 — Check Tooling API vs Data API

Some objects (PermissionSet, FlowDefinition, ApexClass) are queryable via Tooling API but NOT the Data API, and vice versa. If the query hit the wrong endpoint, INVALID_TYPE fires.

Quick reference:

• Data API: User, Account, Case, Contact, PermissionSetAssignment, ObjectPermissions, FieldPermissions, GroupMember, PermissionSetGroupComponent.
• Tooling API only: ApexClass, ApexTrigger, FlowDefinition, ValidationRule, RoutingConfiguration, most metadata-describe objects.

Step 4 — Check running-user access

GET /services/data/vXX.0/sobjects/<SObjectName>/describe — if it returns but the query still fails with INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_OR_READONLY, the user's profile/PS lacks access (Mode 3).

Step 5 — Check API version

Describe does not report a minimum API version. Get it from two places instead: GET /services/data/ (unauthenticated) for the newest version the org serves, and the Object Reference's per-object sentence — "This object is available in API version N.0 and later" — for the object's floor. If the object appears in Describe Global at the org's newest version but not at yours, the verdict is api-version-too-old; bump and retry. The server says the same thing on a 409: "Check that the API version is compatible with the resource you're requesting."

Step 6 — Verify the field projection

If the error is INVALID_FIELD, the object exists but the field list has a bad entry. Retry with SELECT Id FROM <Object> LIMIT 1 to confirm the object works, then narrow down the bad field via binary search on the projection.

Recommended Workflow

1. Open the worksheet and capture the failure verbatim. Start

   templates/salesforce-object-queryability-template.md § 1: object name as written, full query string, surface, client API version, running user, HTTP status, errorCode, message. A blank row here is a re-run, not a guess.

2. Answer the seven questions above into § 2 of the worksheet. Several modes

   fall out before any probe runs — a pinned version below the org's newest, or a namespace you had not accounted for.

3. Run the six probes in order using references/metadata-examples.md block 1

   (curl: Versions → Describe Global → sObject Describe → query) or block 2 (the Apex anonymous script, when you have no API session but do have a dev console). Record all six results in § 3, including skip with its reason.

4. Pick one verdict from the closed vocabulary in § 4 and write the evidence

   lines in § 5. Check it against the mode-specific traps in references/gotchas.md — especially 11 (queryable: false on an object that is present), 15 (an un-filterable field on a queryable object) and 16 (API_DISABLED_FOR_ORG masquerading as a per-object result).

5. Convert the worksheet into the verdict record — the YAML shape in

   references/metadata-examples.md block 6 — and lint it: python3 scripts/check_salesforce_object_queryability.py verdicts/<object>.verdict.yaml. The checker rejects a free-text verdict, a missing probe, and a verdict that contradicts its own checks.

6. **If the verdict is permission-denied, produce the grant, not just the

   finding.* Deploy the permission-set fragment in block 3 (only the permissions the object's *Special Access Rules actually name), then confirm coverage with python3 scripts/check_salesforce_object_queryability.py --manifest-dir force-app/main/default before the deploy.

7. Emit the classification into the caller's output envelope under

   dimensions_compared or dimensions_skipped, carrying the verdict, the evidence, and a retry_hint. Never silent-skip; never ship the bare string "not queryable in this org".

Key patterns

Pattern 1 — Agent output-envelope discipline

Agents comparing multi-dimension surfaces (user access, org state, deployment history) MUST declare which dimensions were compared vs skipped, with reason codes:

{
  "dimensions_compared": ["profile", "permission-sets", "object-crud", "system-perms"],
  "dimensions_skipped": [
    {
      "dimension": "psg-components",
      "reason": "PermissionSetGroupComponent query returned INVALID_TYPE via the /services/data endpoint; retried via /services/data/v62.0/query and succeeded",
      "confidence_impact": "NONE",
      "retry_hint": "Bump sf CLI to 2.38+"
    }
  ]
}

Compare to the bad pattern:

{
  "dimensions_skipped": [
    {"dimension": "psg-components", "reason": "not queryable in this org"}
  ]
}

The bad version hides six possible root causes behind one string. The good version names the cause and gives the caller a remediation.

Pattern 2 — The INVALID_TYPE diagnostic ladder

When the error code is INVALID_TYPE:

Step 1: Is the name in /sobjects/ listing?
  Yes  → Mode 3 (permission) or Mode 6 (API version)
  No   → continue

Step 2: Is the name a managed-package object in this org?
  Yes  → Mode 5 (namespace missing)
  No   → continue

Step 3: Is the name gated by an edition/feature?
  Yes  → Mode 2 (edition limit)
  No   → continue

Step 4: Is the name close to a real sObject name (Levenshtein ≤ 2)?
  Yes  → Mode 1 (typo — suggest the real name)
  No   → Mode 1 (hallucinated; the object does not exist)

Pattern 3 — Non-existent objects agents commonly hallucinate

AI agents pattern-match on naming conventions and occasionally produce plausible-looking sObject names that don't exist. Known hallucinations seen in the wild:

Agents should validate any sObject name against /sobjects/ describe before executing a query, especially when the name looks like a reasonable extrapolation from another name.

Bulk safety

This skill is about diagnosis, not bulk writes. Only bulk-relevant note: when a query fails mid-iteration, do NOT continue looping with the same broken query 200 times. Break out, classify, and either retry once with the fix or propagate the failure.

Error handling

Every query-fail branch in agent code should log:

• The query string
• The endpoint (Data API vs Tooling API)
• The full error response
• The classification (one of the six modes)
• The retry/remediation action taken

Silent try/except: pass is the root cause of the "looks complete but isn't" failure mode. Banning it in agent code is the single most valuable hygiene rule.

Well-Architected mapping

• Reliability — distinguishing "query failed" from "query returned zero rows" from "object doesn't exist" is load-bearing for any agent that operates on live-org data. Collapsing them produces silently-incomplete reports.
• Operational Excellence — runbooks for query failures save hours of debugging. A classified error tells the next engineer exactly which of the six remediation paths to take.
• Security — a permission-denied error is meaningful signal (the agent is running as a user who shouldn't see something). Swallowing it masks a security control working correctly.

Gotchas

See references/gotchas.md.

Official Sources Used

• REST API Developer Guide — Describe Global (/services/data/vXX.X/sobjects/), whose per-object entry carries queryable, keyPrefix and the describe URLs: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/resources_describeGlobal.htm
• REST API Developer Guide — Status Codes and Error Responses, for the 400/403/404/409/500/503 split and the NOT_FOUND / INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS / INVALID_FIELD payload shapes quoted in this skill: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/errorcodes.htm
• REST API Developer Guide — sObject Describe (/services/data/vXX.X/sobjects/sObject/describe/): https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/resources_sobject_describe.htm
• Object Reference for the Salesforce Platform — the Supported Calls, Special Access Rules and "available in API version N.0 and later" conventions that decide whether an object can be queried at all and by whom: https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/262/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/object_reference.pdf
• Apex Developer Guide — Accessing All sObjects (Schema.getGlobalDescribe namespace-prefixed keys from API 28.0) and Dynamic SOQL (AccessLevel.USER_MODE from API 55.0): https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/262/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/salesforce_apex_developer_guide.pdf
• Metadata API Developer Guide — PermissionSet and PermissionSetUserPermission, for the deployable grant in references/metadata-examples.md: https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/262/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/api_meta.pdf
• Salesforce Developer Limits and Allocations Quick Reference — Apex governor limits and the SOAP describeSObjects() 100-object cap that bound a probe run.

Fuller grounding, with the claim each source supports, is in references/well-architected.md.

Reference Files

Related Skills

• admin/data-model-documentation — owns describe-based object and field inventories; come here only when one of its queries fails
• admin/permission-set-architecture — designs the CRUD/FLS grant this skill's permission-denied verdict asks for
• security/record-access-troubleshooting — a query that succeeds and returns fewer rows than expected is sharing, not queryability
• data/soql-query-optimization — a query that works but is slow, or times out on an LDV object
• apex/soql-object-limits-and-restrictions — one object's own required filters, row caps and query restrictions once it is confirmed queryable
• apex/soql-security — enforcing user mode and field access inside the query rather than diagnosing after the fact
• apex/apex-dynamic-soql-binding-safety — building the probe query string without opening an injection path
• data/sosl-search-patterns — when the right answer is search rather than a FROM clause on an object that has no query()

Package files

• references/examples.md
• references/gotchas.md
• references/llm-anti-patterns.md
• references/metadata-examples.md
• references/well-architected.md
• templates/salesforce-object-queryability-template.md
• scripts/check_salesforce_object_queryability.py