Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm · error · Error

URL is required for web scraping

Error message

URL is required for web scraping

What it means

Thrown at the top of executeWebScraping() when config.url is falsy after destructuring. The URL is mandatory before any collector call is attempted. This is a pure input-validation guard.

Source

Thrown at server/utils/agentFlows/executors/web-scraping.js:20

 * Execute a web scraping flow step
 * @param {Object} config Flow step configuration
 * @param {Object} context Execution context with introspect function
 * @returns {Promise<string>} Scraped content
 */
async function executeWebScraping(config, context) {
  const { CollectorApi } = require("../../collectorApi");
  const { TokenManager } = require("../../helpers/tiktoken");
  const Provider = require("../../agents/aibitat/providers/ai-provider");
  const { summarizeContent } = require("../../agents/aibitat/utils/summarize");

  const { url, captureAs = "text", enableSummarization = true } = config;
  const { introspect, logger, aibitat } = context;
  logger(
    `\x1b[43m[AgentFlowToolExecutor]\x1b[0m - executing Web Scraping block`
  );

  if (!url) {
    throw new Error("URL is required for web scraping");
  }

  const captureMode = captureAs === "querySelector" ? "html" : captureAs;
  introspect(`Scraping the content of ${url} as ${captureAs}`);
  const { success, content } = await new CollectorApi()
    .getLinkContent(url, captureMode)
    .then((res) => {
      if (captureAs !== "querySelector") return res;
      return parseHTMLwithSelector(res.content, config.querySelector, context);
    });

  if (!success) {
    introspect(`Could not scrape ${url}. Cannot use this page's content.`);
    throw new Error("URL could not be scraped and no content was found.");
  }

  introspect(`Successfully scraped content from ${url}`);
  if (!content || content?.length === 0) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 526360e320)

Solutions

1. Set a non-empty url in the webScraping step config.
2. If using a variable like ${pageUrl}, ensure the start block declares it and a value is supplied at execution time.
3. Verify the variable name spelling matches between the start block and the url template.

Example fix

// before - no url supplied
{"type":"webScraping","config":{"captureAs":"text"}}
// after - url provided
{"type":"webScraping","config":{"url":"https://example.com","captureAs":"text"}}

function validateWebScrapingConfig(config) {
  if (!config.url || typeof config.url !== "string")
    throw new Error("webScraping step requires a non-empty url");
}

const hasScrapeUrl = (config) => typeof config?.url === "string" && config.url.trim().length > 0;

When it happens

Trigger: A webScraping step whose config has no `url` field, an empty url string, or a url built from an unresolved variable template like ${pageUrl} where the variable was never set (replaceVariables leaves unmatched ${...} as-is, so the url would be non-empty in that case, but a missing field entirely triggers this).

Common situations: Block created without filling the URL; the url field references a variable that does not exist in the flow's variable map; the start block did not declare the variable used in the url.

Related errors

• ${response.error || "Failed to create agent flow"}
• Unknown flow type: ${step.type}
• URL could not be scraped and no content was found.
• There was no content to be collected or read.
• This flow includes unsupported blocks. They may not be suppo

AI-assisted analysis of Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm@526360e320 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/72a21fbac82250c5. Report an issue: GitHub.