What causes "${label} must be a LinkedIn URL" in jackwener/OpenCLI?

Validate the URL string with new URL(value, 'https://www.linkedin.com') before calling the command.

jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

${label} must be a LinkedIn URL

Error message

${label} must be a LinkedIn URL

What it means

assertSafeLinkedinUrl parses the supplied URL against https://www.linkedin.com and throws ArgumentError when parsing fails entirely — the value is not a valid URL at all. This is the first gate of the LinkedIn URL safety validation used by commands like services-read.

Source

Thrown at clis/linkedin/shared.js:93

  }
  return text;
}

export function looksLinkedInAuthWall(value) {
  const text = normalizeWhitespace(value).toLowerCase();
  if (!text) return false;
  return /linkedin\.com\/(?:login|checkpoint|authwall|uas)/i.test(text)
    || /\b(sign in|log in|join linkedin|captcha|verification required)\b/i.test(text)
    || /(请登录|登录领英|安全验证)/.test(text);
}

export function assertSafeLinkedinUrl(value, label, fallbackPath = '/') {
  const raw = normalizeWhitespace(value || `https://www.linkedin.com${fallbackPath}`);
  let parsed;
  try {
    parsed = new URL(raw, 'https://www.linkedin.com');
  } catch {
    throw new ArgumentError(`${label} must be a LinkedIn URL`);
  }
  const host = parsed.hostname.toLowerCase();
  if (parsed.protocol !== 'https:' || parsed.username || parsed.password || parsed.port) {
    throw new ArgumentError(`${label} must be an https LinkedIn URL without credentials or port`);
  }
  if (host !== 'linkedin.com' && host !== 'www.linkedin.com') {
    throw new ArgumentError(`${label} must point to linkedin.com`);
  }
  return parsed.toString();
}

export function requireStringArg(args, key, label = key) {
  const value = normalizeWhitespace(args?.[key]);
  if (!value) throw new ArgumentError(`${label} is required`);
  return value;
}

export function parseLimit(value, fallback, max) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

Validate the URL string with new URL(value, 'https://www.linkedin.com') before calling the command.
Pass a full absolute https URL, e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/in/<handle>/.
If the value comes from config/env, log and sanitize it (trim, percent-encode) before passing.

Example fix

// before
await runCommand('linkedin services-read', ['--profile-url', 'https://']);
// after
await runCommand('linkedin services-read', ['--profile-url', 'https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe/']);

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function parseLinkedinUrl(v) {
  try { return new URL(String(v).trim(), 'https://www.linkedin.com'); }
  catch { throw new Error('profile-url/services-url must be a valid URL'); }
}

Type guard

function isValidUrl(v) {
  try { new URL(String(v), 'https://www.linkedin.com'); return true; } catch { return false; }
}

Prevention

Validate URLs from env/config at startup, fail fast with a clear message.
Trim and sanitize shell-supplied arguments before passing them.
Build URLs programmatically instead of hand-typing them.

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a value that cannot be parsed by `new URL(raw, 'https://www.linkedin.com')`, e.g. a whitespace-free garbage string like '::::' or '%zz', or an empty label with no fallback applied (empty values fall back to https://www.linkedin.com<fallbackPath>, so pure emptiness does not trigger this).

Common situations: Typos in config/env-provided URLs; passing a raw handle like 'jane-doe' is accepted (resolved relative to linkedin.com) but fragments like 'https://' alone or 'http\x' fail; quoting/space issues in shell args are normalized away, leaving invalid remnants.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4b5b95b01d8639a0. Report an issue: GitHub.