jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

archive search sort must be one of ${SORT_OPTIONS.join(', ')

Error message

archive search sort must be one of ${SORT_OPTIONS.join(', ')}

What it means

This ArgumentError is thrown before any network call by `archive search` when the resolved `sort` value is not one of SORT_OPTIONS ('downloads', 'date', 'addeddate', 'week', 'title'). Input is lowercased and passed through SORT_ALIAS ('added'->'addeddate', 'published'->'date') first, so only values outside that whitelist fail. It is a client-side input validation error.

Source

Thrown at clis/archive/search.js:33

    site: 'archive',
    name: 'search',
    access: 'read',
    description: 'Search Internet Archive items across books, movies, audio, software, and web.',
    domain: 'archive.org',
    strategy: Strategy.PUBLIC,
    browser: false,
    args: [
        { name: 'query', positional: true, required: true, help: 'Full-text query (matches title, description, creator, subject).' },
        { name: 'mediatype', type: 'string', required: false, help: `Restrict to mediatype: ${MEDIATYPES.join(', ')}` },
        { name: 'sort', type: 'string', default: 'downloads', help: `Sort key: ${SORT_OPTIONS.join(', ')}` },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 20, help: 'Max items (max 100; one API page).' },
    ],
    columns: ['rank', 'identifier', 'title', 'creator', 'date', 'mediatype', 'downloads', 'url'],
    func: async (args) => {
        const sortRaw = String(args.sort ?? 'downloads').toLowerCase();
        const sort = SORT_ALIAS[sortRaw] ?? sortRaw;
        if (!SORT_OPTIONS.includes(sort)) {
            throw new ArgumentError(`archive search sort must be one of ${SORT_OPTIONS.join(', ')}`);
        }
        if (args.mediatype && !MEDIATYPES.includes(String(args.mediatype))) {
            throw new ArgumentError(`archive search mediatype must be one of ${MEDIATYPES.join(', ')}`);
        }
        const limit = Number(args.limit ?? 20);
        if (!Number.isInteger(limit) || limit <= 0) {
            throw new ArgumentError('archive search limit must be a positive integer');
        }
        if (limit > 100) {
            throw new ArgumentError('archive search limit must be <= 100');
        }

        const query = String(args.query ?? '').trim();
        if (!query) {
            throw new ArgumentError('archive search query must not be empty');
        }

        const fullQuery = args.mediatype

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Use one of the allowed values: downloads, date, addeddate, week, title
2. Use the built-in aliases: 'added' (for addeddate) or 'published' (for date)
3. Omit --sort entirely to get the default 'downloads' ordering

Example fix

// before
opencli archive search "folk songs" --sort relevance
// after
opencli archive search "folk songs" --sort downloads

const SORT_OPTIONS = ['downloads', 'date', 'addeddate', 'week', 'title'];
const SORT_ALIAS = { added: 'addeddate', published: 'date' };
const sort = SORT_ALIAS[String(rawSort).toLowerCase()] ?? String(rawSort).toLowerCase();
if (!SORT_OPTIONS.includes(sort)) throw new Error(`sort must be one of ${SORT_OPTIONS.join(', ')}`);

const isSortOption = (s) => ['downloads','date','addeddate','week','title'].includes(s);

try {
    rows = await run(['archive', 'search', query, '--sort', sort]);
} catch (err) {
    if (err instanceof ArgumentError && err.message.includes('sort must be one of')) {
        rows = await run(['archive', 'search', query]); // fall back to default sort
    } else { throw err; }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `opencli archive search <query> --sort <value>` where <value> (after lowercasing and alias mapping) is not exactly one of downloads, date, addeddate, week, title — e.g. --sort relevance, --sort pubdate, or a typo like --sort downlods.

Common situations: Copying sort keys from other search APIs (relevance, newest); using field names like 'year' or 'publisher' that archive.org supports in query syntax but are not whitelisted here; capitalization is fine (lowercased) but hyphenated variants like 'added-date' fail.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• archive search mediatype must be one of ${MEDIATYPES.join(',
• archive search limit must be a positive integer
• archive search query must not be empty
• archive search limit must be <= 100
• arxiv author cannot be empty

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7dfe0570af8a8f3b. Report an issue: GitHub.