Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Error: "alg" parameter "ES256" requires curve "prime256v1"

Open
#862 8 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
javascript, node.js

Research direction

Start with the Changelog, Migration guide, and the source code for the validation that rejects the ES256 curve. Investigate the implications of using secp256k1 instead of prime256v1 and determine what guidance is missing. Done means the project documentation clearly explains the curve requirement, the security implications, and when bypassing the check is appropriate.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Not a bug report, but a question.

My code started to fail with version 9 because of this error.
I've read the Changelog, Migration guide and source code that does this validation and see where it comes from.

I also can see that I can bypass this check with allowInvalidAsymmetricKeyTypes.

What I cannot find information about is what is the implication that I have used "wrong curve" when generating the keys?

In particular, I have used this command before: openssl ecparam -name secp256k1 -genkey -noout -out key.pem.
"Correct" command with the "correct" curve looks like this: openssl ecparam -name prime256v1 -genkey -noout -out key.pem.

Are my tokens vulnerable to some attack or something, because I have used the "wrong curve" when generating the keys?

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
18.2k
Forks
1.3k
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from auth0/node-jsonwebtoken

All issues in auth0/node-jsonwebtoken

Similar issues

More JavaScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.