uipath-community-cloud-gotchas

name	uipath-community-cloud-gotchas
description	Brick walls hit when deploying a Portable (.NET 8 / Linux serverless) UiPath project to Community Cloud in 2025-2026. Load this before attempting any Portable deploy, Document Understanding integration, Maestro push, Action Center task, or Orchestrator API call that isn't obviously supported. Saves hours of dead-end debugging.

UiPath Community Cloud Gotchas (Portable / Linux serverless)

Every item below was hit live during the April 2026 enterprise build and is documented with the concrete symptom + workaround. Full evidence lives in docs/community_cloud_limitations.md at the repo root.

When to read each section

• Before writing XAML: §1 (no UI activities), §6 (no expressions in Main.xaml), §11 (project.json enums)
• Before touching Document Understanding: §2 (IntelligentOCR is Windows-only), §3 (DU scopes)
• Before designing a Maestro flow: §4 (no public deploy API)
• Before designing human approval: §5 (no Action Center in Community)
• Before reading Orchestrator assets at runtime: §7 (no asset → env-var bridge)
• Before uploading PDFs via Storage Buckets: §8 (default external app lacks scope)
• Before invoking a job: §9 (need a machine), §10 (requiresUserInteraction must be false)
• Before loading project.json as a string dict: §11, §12 (field types changed in 25.10)

§1 — Serverless robot is Linux, ui:* activities silently fail

UiPath.UIAutomation.Activities targets net48 and cannot load into the .NET 8 Portable runtime. Workaround: drive every UI via HTTP/JSON-RPC from a C# coded workflow. Main.xaml should be a minimal <Sequence /> that InvokeWorkflowFiles the compiled .cs.

§2 — UiPath.IntelligentOCR.Activities is Windows-only

DigitizeDocument, MachineLearningExtractor, PresentValidationStation cannot be used in a Portable project. uipcli pack errors with Cannot create unknown type {…intelligentocr}DigitizeDocument. Workaround: call the DU Cloud API v2 REST endpoint directly from C# (HttpClient → cloud.uipath.com/{org}/{tenant}/du_/api/framework/...).

§3 — DU Cloud API v2 needs extra scopes on the external app

Default external apps get OR.Execution OR.Jobs OR.Queues OR.Assets OR.Folders OR.Machines OR.Robots OR.Settings. The DU endpoints reject tokens without Du.Digitization.Api Du.Extraction.Api Du.Classification.Api Du.Validation.Api. Token endpoint returns {"error":"invalid_scope"} when you try to request them without registering. Workaround: Register them at cloud.uipath.com/{org}/portal_/externalAppsRegistration → Edit app → Resources → Document Understanding API → add scopes, save, regenerate secret. Code should catch a DuApiScopeMissingException and fall back to a local extractor so the pipeline runs end-to-end regardless.

§4 — No public Maestro deployment API (as of 2025.10 / 2026)

OData $metadata has no Maestro section. No REST docs, no 200 OK on any guessed endpoint. Workaround: ship BPMN 2.0 + DMN 1.3 files as a sibling directory (not bundled inside the .nupkg — Orchestrator silently ignores extra files). Provide a manual Studio Web import guide.

§5 — No Action Center on Community tier

POST /odata/Tasks with a human task returns 403 — Enterprise license required. Workaround: if targeting an ERP like Odoo, use mail.activity.activity_schedule(...) on the affected record. The activity shows as a 🔔 badge in the ERP UI. Note: direct mail.activity.create(...) fails on res_model_id NotNullViolation — use the helper.

§6 — Portable disables JIT compilation

Any expression in Main.xaml (e.g. [myVar], a ui:LogMessage.Message with a variable) faults the job with JIT compilation is disabled for non-Legacy projects. Workaround: Main.xaml emits only literals. Real expressions live inside compiled C#.

§7 — Orchestrator Assets don't surface as env vars in Portable

System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MyAsset") returns stale container env, not the asset value. Workaround: bake runtime config (URLs, API keys) directly into C# string literals at pack time. Regenerate and repack on every deploy if values change.

§8 — Storage Buckets return 403 You are not authorized!

Default external app lacks bucket scope. Workaround: base64-embed small binary resources (PDFs, images, certs) as C# constants in the generated assembly. For 5 × ~3KB invoices that's 14.5 KB total — not a problem.

§9 — Job invoke errorCode 2818

"no machine with Unattended runtimes in folder." Workaround: create a Standard machine via POST /odata/Machines {Name, Type: "Standard", UnattendedSlots: 1} then assign to folder via POST /odata/Folders/UiPath.Server.Configuration.OData.AssignMachines {"assignments": {"MachineIds": [...], "FolderIds": [...]}}. The outer key is assignments, inner fields are PascalCase MachineIds / FolderIds.

§10 — Job invoke errorCode 1015

"Robots without credentials cannot run interactive." Workaround: set "requiresUserInteraction": false and "projectProfile": 0 (numeric!) in project.json. With those two flags the Linux serverless robot runs cleanly.

§11 — Studio 25.10 project.json enum strictness

• targetFramework accepts only Windows / Legacy / Portable / Cross-Platform — not net6.0-windows or TFM strings
• projectProfile must be the numeric enum (0 or 1), not the string "Development" that older docs show
• targetFramework for Linux serverless = "Portable"

§12 — main field required in project.json

Robot error ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null (Parameter 'path2') inside RobotRunner.InitWorkflowApplication. The legacy top-level main field is still required by the 25.10 workflow loader even when entryPoints is set. Always include "main": "Main.xaml".

Summary table

Capability	Status on Community Portable
UI automation (ui:Click)	❌ Windows only
IntelligentOCR.Activities XAML	❌ Windows only
DU via REST (C# HttpClient)	⚠️ Needs DU scopes on external app
Maestro BPMN deploy via API	❌ Studio Web only
Action Center tasks	❌ Enterprise only
Storage Buckets	⚠️ Needs bucket scope
Orchestrator Assets at runtime	⚠️ Bake into code at pack time
C# CodedWorkflow + HttpClient	✅ Works
Queue seed + job invoke	✅ Works
Package upload + release create	✅ Works