jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

facebook search requires a non-empty query

Error message

facebook search requires a non-empty query

What it means

ArgumentError thrown by requireQuery when the search query is missing, empty, or whitespace-only. requireQuery trims String(value ?? '') and rejects falsy results before the search runs. It is a local input validation guard raised before any browser navigation.

Source

Thrown at clis/facebook/search.js:17

import { ArgumentError, AuthRequiredError, CommandExecutionError, EmptyResultError } from '@jackwener/opencli/errors';
import { cli, Strategy } from '@jackwener/opencli/registry';

const FACEBOOK_HOME = 'https://www.facebook.com';
const MAX_LIMIT = 50;

function requireLimit(value) {
  const n = Number(value);
  if (!Number.isInteger(n) || n < 1 || n > MAX_LIMIT) {
    throw new ArgumentError(`facebook search --limit must be an integer between 1 and ${MAX_LIMIT}`);
  }
  return n;
}

function requireQuery(value) {
  const q = String(value ?? '').trim();
  if (!q) throw new ArgumentError('facebook search requires a non-empty query');
  return q;
}

function unwrapBrowserResult(value) {
  if (value && typeof value === 'object' && 'data' in value) return value.data;
  return value;
}

// Modern facebook.com /search/top renders results inside [role="feed"] as
// entity/content links (people, pages, groups, posts) — [role="article"] /
// [role="listitem"] no longer wrap them — and FB seeds scrambled hidden-char
// decoy links back to /search/top. Collect anchors inside the feed, keep only
// real entity/content hrefs, and drop the decoys plus obfuscated text. See #2090.
function buildSearchExtractScript(limit) {
  return `(() => {
    const limit = ${limit};

    function clean(value) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Supply a non-empty query, e.g. facebook search --query "openai"
  2. Trim and check the value before invoking: if (!q?.trim()) return early
  3. Fix shell quoting so the argument is actually passed

Example fix

// before
const q = process.env.QUERY; // may be undefined
await cli.search({ query: q });
// after
const q = (process.env.QUERY ?? '').trim();
if (!q) throw new Error('QUERY is required');
await cli.search({ query: q });
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const q = (rawQuery ?? '').trim();
if (!q) throw new Error('A non-empty search query is required');
await cli.search({ query: q });

Type guard

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

Try / catch

try {
  await cli.search({ query });
} catch (err) {
  if (/requires a non-empty query/.test(err.message)) {
    console.error('Usage: facebook search --query "<terms>"');
    process.exitCode = 2;
    return;
  }
  throw err;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running `facebook search` with no --query argument, an empty string (--query ""), or a value consisting only of whitespace.

Common situations: Scripting where the query variable is empty or null; shell quoting issues dropping the argument; user forgetting the required flag.

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/6116393377be84cb. Report an issue: GitHub.