lifecycle is not an ARTF Lifecycle value
The lifecycle value is not one the ARTF enum defines, so the agent cannot tell which auction stage it is being called at.
What it means
lifecycle carries a value outside the Lifecycle enum. ARTF v1.0 defines LIFECYCLE_UNSPECIFIED, LIFECYCLE_PUBLISHER_BID_REQUEST, and LIFECYCLE_DSP_BID_RESPONSE, and states that more will be added.
Why it matters
The stage decides which intents make sense: bid shading has nothing to shade before a DSP has answered. An agent that cannot read the stage either guesses or declines, and both are worse than being told.
How to fix it
Send an enum value name or its number. If you are extending the vocabulary privately, note that the proto reserves no range for it, so a receiver has no way to distinguish your value from a version skew.
Example that trips it
{ "id": "ep-1", "tmax": 120, "lifecycle": "LIFECYCLE_MIDROLL", "bid_request": { "id": "a-1" } }Check your payload
Paste a bid request or response into the tester to see whether this code fires against it, or gate on the id in CI with the CLI: the id is stable, wording is not.
Back to the full diagnostic code reference.