jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · ArgumentError

bbc topic "${args.topic}" is not supported

Error message

bbc topic "${args.topic}" is not supported

What it means

ArgumentError from `bbc topic` when the requested topic, after normalization (trim, lowercase, spaces/hyphens to underscores), is not in the TOPICS allowlist. The library validates the topic before fetching the RSS feed, listing all supported topics in the suggestion.

Source

Thrown at clis/bbc/topic.js:38

];

cli({
    site: 'bbc',
    name: 'topic',
    access: 'read',
    description: 'BBC News headlines for a specific section (RSS feed)',
    domain: 'www.bbc.com',
    strategy: Strategy.PUBLIC,
    browser: false,
    args: [
        { name: 'topic', positional: true, required: true, help: `Section name (${TOPICS.join(' / ')})` },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 20, help: 'Max headlines (1-50)' },
    ],
    columns: ['rank', 'title', 'description', 'pubDate', 'url'],
    func: async (args) => {
        const raw = String(args.topic ?? '').trim().toLowerCase().replace(/[\s-]+/g, '_');
        if (!TOPICS.includes(raw)) {
            throw new ArgumentError(
                `bbc topic "${args.topic}" is not supported`,
                `Supported topics: ${TOPICS.join(', ')}`,
            );
        }
        const limit = requireBoundedInt(args.limit, 20, 50);
        const xml = await bbcFetchRss(`${raw}/rss.xml`, `bbc topic ${raw}`);
        const items = parseRssItems(xml);
        if (!items.length) {
            throw new EmptyResultError('bbc topic', `BBC ${raw} feed returned no items.`);
        }
        return items.slice(0, limit).map((it, i) => ({
            rank: i + 1,
            title: it.title,
            description: it.description,
            pubDate: pubDateToIso(it.pubDate),
            url: it.link,
        }));
    },

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Use the suggestion text listing supported topics and pick an exact one.
2. Normalize your input: lowercase, single words matching TOPICS entries.
3. Check the CLI help (`bbc topic --help`) for the current topic list.
4. Request the topic be added if BBC actually publishes that feed.

Example fix

// before
await cli.run(['bbc','topic','Tech News']);
// after
await cli.run(['bbc','topic','technology']);

const TOPICS = ['news','world','uk','business','politics','health','education','science','technology','entertainment','stories'];
function assertTopic(t){ const n = String(t??'').trim().toLowerCase().replace(/[\s-]+/g,'_'); if(!TOPICS.includes(n)) throw new Error(`unsupported topic: ${t}`); }

const isSupportedTopic = (t, topics) => topics.includes(String(t??'').trim().toLowerCase().replace(/[\s-]+/g,'_'));

try {
  const items = await cli.run(['bbc','topic', topic]);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'ArgumentError' && /not supported/.test(e.message)) {
    console.error(e.message, e.suggestion || '');
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: `bbc topic <name>` with a misspelled topic, an unsupported category (BBC has no feed for it), or free-form text with spaces/hyphens that normalizes to an unknown key.

Common situations: Users guessing topic names ('tech news' vs 'technology'), topics removed/renamed by BBC, capitalization or pluralization mistakes ('Businesses' vs 'business').

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

• bbc ${label} must be a positive integer
• bbc ${label} must be <= ${maxValue}
• ARGUMENT
• ${label} must be a positive integer
• ${label} cannot be empty

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aa421e3505bd19c7. Report an issue: GitHub.