chenglou/pretext · error · Error

Missing --${name}=...

Error message

Missing --${name}=...

What it means

requireFlag reads a mandatory --<name>=<value> flag and throws when it is absent or empty. Currently the only required flag is --text (line 147): the probe checker must have a string to measure. The parser only recognizes the --name=value form, so space-separated --text hello will not be picked up.

Source

Thrown at scripts/probe-check.ts:89

function parseNumberFlag(name: string, fallback: number): number {
  const raw = parseStringFlag(name)
  if (raw === null) return fallback
  const parsed = Number.parseInt(raw, 10)
  if (!Number.isFinite(parsed)) throw new Error(`Invalid value for --${name}: ${raw}`)
  return parsed
}

function parseBrowser(value: string | null): BrowserKind {
  const browser = (value ?? process.env['PROBE_CHECK_BROWSER'] ?? 'chrome').toLowerCase()
  if (browser !== 'chrome' && browser !== 'safari') {
    throw new Error(`Unsupported browser ${browser}; expected chrome or safari`)
  }
  return browser
}

function requireFlag(name: string): string {
  const value = parseStringFlag(name)
  if (value === null || value.length === 0) throw new Error(`Missing --${name}=...`)
  return value
}

function printReport(report: ProbeReport): void {
  if (report.status === 'error') {
    console.log(`error: ${report.message ?? 'unknown error'}`)
    return
  }

  console.log(
    `width ${report.width}: diff ${report.diffPx}px | lines ${report.predictedLineCount}/${report.browserLineCount} | height ${report.predictedHeight}/${report.actualHeight}`,
  )
  if (report.browserLineMethod !== undefined) {
    console.log(`  browser line method: ${report.browserLineMethod}`)
  }
  if (report.extractorSensitivity !== null && report.extractorSensitivity !== undefined) {
    console.log(`  extractor sensitivity: ${report.extractorSensitivity}`)
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to ac49b09b7d)

Solutions

1. Pass --text=<your string>.
2. Ensure the value is non-empty after the =.
3. Quote strings with spaces: --text="hello world".

Example fix

# before
bun run scripts/probe-check.ts --width=600

# after
bun run scripts/probe-check.ts --text="hello world" --width=600

const hasRequiredFlag = (name: string): boolean => {
  const v = parseStringFlag(name)
  return v !== null && v.length > 0
}
if (!hasRequiredFlag('text')) {
  console.error('probe-check requires --text=<string>')
  process.exit(2)
}

const hasRequiredFlag = (name: string): boolean => {
  const v = parseStringFlag(name)
  return v !== null && v.length > 0
}

When it happens

Trigger: Run probe-check without --text=...; pass --text= (empty); use space form (--text hi) which is parsed as a positional and ignored.

Common situations: First-time use; assuming --text has a default; a shell that splits --text= from its value.

Related errors

• Invalid value for --${name}: ${raw}
• --step must be > 0
• Missing --id or --all. Available corpora: ${sources.map(sour
• Invalid value for --${name}: ${raw}
• Missing --id. Available corpora: ${sources.map(source => sou

AI-assisted analysis of chenglou/pretext@ac49b09b7d (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/51502c24eebe8223. Report an issue: GitHub.