jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

archive snapshots url cannot be empty

Error message

archive snapshots url cannot be empty

What it means

ArgumentError thrown up front by `opencli archive snapshots` when the `url` argument is missing, empty, or whitespace-only after trimming. It is pure client-side input validation — no network request is made — and the error message includes an example invocation to guide correct usage.

Source

Thrown at clis/archive/snapshots.js:40

cli({
    site: 'archive',
    name: 'snapshots',
    access: 'read',
    description: 'List Wayback Machine snapshots over time for a URL via the CDX API.',
    domain: 'archive.org',
    strategy: Strategy.PUBLIC,
    browser: false,
    args: [
        { name: 'url', positional: true, required: true, help: 'URL to look up (with or without scheme).' },
        { name: 'from', type: 'string', required: false, help: 'Earliest year/timestamp (YYYY[MM[DD[hh[mm[ss]]]]])' },
        { name: 'to', type: 'string', required: false, help: 'Latest year/timestamp (YYYY[MM[DD[hh[mm[ss]]]]])' },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 20, help: 'Max snapshots to return (max 1000).' },
    ],
    columns: ['timestamp', 'snapshot_url', 'status', 'mimetype', 'original_url'],
    func: async (args) => {
        const target = String(args.url ?? '').trim();
        if (!target) {
            throw new ArgumentError(
                'archive snapshots url cannot be empty',
                'Example: opencli archive snapshots wikipedia.org',
            );
        }
        const limit = Number(args.limit ?? 20);
        if (!Number.isInteger(limit) || limit <= 0) {
            throw new ArgumentError('archive snapshots limit must be a positive integer');
        }
        if (limit > 1000) {
            throw new ArgumentError('archive snapshots limit must be <= 1000');
        }
        for (const key of ['from', 'to']) {
            const v = args[key];
            if (v != null && !/^\d{4,14}$/.test(String(v))) {
                throw new ArgumentError(`archive snapshots ${key} must be a digit-only timestamp (YYYY[MM[DD[hh[mm[ss]]]]])`);
            }
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Pass the target site/domain as the url argument: opencli archive snapshots wikipedia.org
  2. In scripts, guard against unset variables: [ -n "$URL" ] || exit 1 before invoking the CLI.
  3. Check argument ordering — the url must be supplied to the `url` arg, not swallowed by a flag.

Example fix

// before (shell)
URL=""
opencli archive snapshots "$URL"
// after
URL="wikipedia.org"
opencli archive snapshots "$URL"
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// shell
if [ -z "${URL// /}" ]; then echo "url is required, e.g.: opencli archive snapshots wikipedia.org" >&2; exit 1; fi
opencli archive snapshots "$URL"
// node
if (!url || !String(url).trim()) throw new Error('url is required');

Type guard

function isValidTarget(v) {
  return typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0;
}

Try / catch

try {
  await run(['archive', 'snapshots', url]);
} catch (e) {
  if (/url cannot be empty/.test(e.message)) {
    console.error('usage: opencli archive snapshots <site>');
    process.exitCode = 2;
  } else throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running `opencli archive snapshots` with no url argument, or with an empty/whitespace string ("" or " ").

Common situations: Scripting the CLI with a variable that failed to expand (e.g. empty $URL in shell); forgetting the positional argument; passing an option in the wrong slot so url stays empty.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4e116fdbff8b91fc. Report an issue: GitHub.