jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

--approve-kinds must contain at least one approval kind

Error message

--approve-kinds must contain at least one approval kind

What it means

After expanding items (where 'all' expands to terminal/delete/keep) and de-duplicating, normalizeApprovalKinds requires at least one approval kind. An empty result means nothing to approve was specified, so the library throws this ArgumentError rather than silently running with no approvals.

Solutions

1. Pass at least one kind, e.g. --approve-kinds terminal
2. Use --approve-kinds all to approve everything
3. Remove the empty flag so the library default applies if one exists

Example fix

// before
--approve-kinds ""
// after
--approve-kinds all

const items = (approveKinds ?? '').split(',').map(s => s.trim()).filter(Boolean);
if (items.length === 0) throw new Error('--approve-kinds requires at least one of terminal, delete, keep, or all');

const hasApprovalKinds = (v) => typeof v === 'string' && v.split(',').map(s=>s.trim()).filter(Boolean).length > 0;

try { kinds = normalizeApprovalKinds(raw); } catch (e) { if (/at least one approval kind/.test(e.message)) { kinds = ['terminal']; console.warn('Empty --approve-kinds, defaulting to terminal'); } else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling kinds/approvalKinds with --approve-kinds '' or a value that yields an empty list after trimming/expansion.

Common situations: Empty string passed through shell quoting, or config files where the kinds key is present but blank.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Unknown argument", "Invalid value", and "must be one of": invalid CLI argument errors explained — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Instagram note content cannot be empty.
• cannot be empty
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• prompt cannot be empty

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9e952d4cd2385475. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at clis/trae-cn/utils.js:87

export function normalizeApprovalKinds(value, fallback = TRAE_CN_APPROVAL_DEFAULT_KINDS.join(',')) {
  const raw = value === undefined || value === null || value === '' ? fallback : value;
  const parts = Array.isArray(raw) ? raw : String(raw).split(',');
  const expanded = [];
  for (const part of parts) {
    const item = String(part || '').trim().toLowerCase();
    if (!item) continue;
    if (item === 'all') {
      expanded.push('terminal', 'delete', 'keep');
      continue;
    }
    if (!['terminal', 'delete', 'keep'].includes(item)) {
      throw new ArgumentError('--approve-kinds must contain only terminal, delete, keep, or all');
    }
    expanded.push(item);
  }
  const unique = Array.from(new Set(expanded));
  if (unique.length === 0) {
    throw new ArgumentError('--approve-kinds must contain at least one approval kind');
  }
  return unique;
}

export function normalizeApprovalLimit(value, fallback = 1) {
  const limit = value === undefined || value === null ? fallback : Number(value);
  if (!Number.isInteger(limit) || limit < 1 || limit > 20) {
    throw new ArgumentError('--limit must be an integer between 1 and 20');
  }
  return limit;
}

export function ensurePrompt(text) {
  const prompt = typeof text === 'string' ? text : '';
  if (!prompt.trim()) {
    throw new ArgumentError('text must not be empty');
  }
  return prompt;

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