jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

channel required

Error message

channel required

What it means

`channel-info` requires a target channel identifier. The CLI trims the `channel` kwarg and throws ArgumentError('channel required') when it is missing or empty, before resolving the channel via `buildChannelScopedSnippet`.

Source

Thrown at clis/slock/channel-info.js:24

import { SLOCK_SITE, SLOCK_DOMAIN, SLOCK_HOME_URL } from './shared.js';

cli({
  site: SLOCK_SITE,
  name: 'channel-info',
  access: 'read',
  description: 'Show one channel\'s details (GET /channels/:id)',
  domain: SLOCK_DOMAIN,
  strategy: Strategy.COOKIE,
  browser: true,
  siteSession: 'persistent',
  args: [
    { name: 'channel', positional: true, required: true, help: 'channelId UUID or #name' },
    { name: 'server', help: 'Override active server' },
  ],
  columns: ['id', 'name', 'type', 'topic', 'joined', 'archivedAt'],
  func: async (page, kwargs) => {
    const channel = String(kwargs.channel ?? '').trim();
    if (!channel) throw new ArgumentError('channel required');
    await page.goto(SLOCK_HOME_URL);
    const snippet = buildChannelScopedSnippet({
      channelInput: channel,
      method: 'GET',
      serverIdOverride: kwargs.server,
    });
    const result = await page.evaluate(`(async () => { ${snippet} })()`);
    const c = dispatchEvaluateResult(result) || {};
    return [{
      id: c.id ?? '',
      name: c.name ?? c.slug ?? '',
      type: c.type ?? '',
      topic: c.topic ?? c.description ?? '',
      joined: c.joined ?? null,
      archivedAt: c.archivedAt ?? null,
    }];
  },
});

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Provide the channel: `slock channel-info '#ops'` or the channelId UUID
2. Guard variables in scripts: `: "${CHANNEL:?channel not set}"`
3. Run `slock channel-info --help` to confirm argument syntax

Example fix

// before
$ slock channel-info
Error: channel required
// after
$ slock channel-info '#ops'

const channel = String(input.channel ?? '').trim();
if (!channel) throw new Error('channel must be provided (#name or channelId UUID)');

const hasChannel = (v) => typeof v === 'string' && v.trim().length > 0;

try {
  await run(['slock', 'channel-info', channel]);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof ArgumentError && e.message === 'channel required') {
    console.error('Pass the channel positionally: slock channel-info <#name|uuid>.');
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `slock channel-info` without the positional/`--channel` value, or with an empty string after trimming.

Common situations: Automation passing an unset variable, interactive users forgetting the positional argument (the arg is marked required:true but empty strings still slip through), or quoting bugs that yield "".

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

• symbol is required
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• --${name} is required (e.g. 北京 / 上海)
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AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ee5ec6fd6fcf707c. Report an issue: GitHub.