jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

--limit must be a positive integer

Error message

--limit must be a positive integer

What it means

The `--limit` option of `opencli github-trending repos` must be a positive integer (default 25). Non-integer, zero, negative, or non-numeric values throw this ArgumentError. Validation runs after --since parsing and before any HTTP request.

Source

Thrown at clis/github-trending/repos.js:122

    domain: 'github.com',
    strategy: Strategy.PUBLIC,
    browser: false,
    args: [
        { name: 'since', type: 'string', default: 'daily', help: 'Time range: daily / weekly / monthly' },
        { name: 'language', type: 'string', default: '', help: 'Filter by programming language slug, e.g. python, rust, "c++"' },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 25, help: 'Number of repositories to return (max 25)' },
    ],
    columns: ['rank', 'repo', 'description', 'language', 'stars', 'forks', 'starsSince', 'url'],
    func: async (args) => {
        const sinceKey = String(args.since ?? 'daily').toLowerCase();
        const since = SINCE[sinceKey];
        if (!since) {
            throw new ArgumentError(`Unknown --since "${sinceKey}". Valid: ${Object.keys(SINCE).join(', ')}`);
        }

        const n = Number(args.limit ?? 25);
        if (!Number.isInteger(n) || n <= 0) {
            throw new ArgumentError('--limit must be a positive integer');
        }
        if (n > 25) {
            throw new ArgumentError('--limit must be <= 25 (GitHub Trending lists at most 25 repositories)');
        }
        const limit = n;

        const language = String(args.language ?? '').trim();
        const path = language ? `/trending/${encodeURIComponent(language)}` : '/trending';
        const url = new URL(`https://github.com${path}`);
        url.searchParams.set('since', since);

        let resp;
        try {
            resp = await fetch(url, {
                headers: {
                    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; opencli/github-trending)',
                    Accept: 'text/html',
                },

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Pass a positive integer between 1 and 25, e.g. --limit 10
  2. Omit --limit entirely to use the default of 25
  3. Fix the script logic producing a non-integer/empty value before invoking the CLI

Example fix

// before
const lim = process.env.LIMIT; // "" -> NaN
opencli github-trending repos --limit "$lim"
// after
const lim = process.env.LIMIT || "25";
opencli github-trending repos --limit "$lim"
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function validateLimit(v) {
  const n = Number(v ?? 25);
  if (!Number.isInteger(n) || n <= 0) throw new Error('--limit must be a positive integer');
  return n;
}

Type guard

function isArgumentError(e) { return e instanceof Error && e.name === 'ArgumentError'; }

Try / catch

try {
  await run(['opencli', 'github-trending', 'repos', '--limit', String(limit)]);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'ArgumentError') { console.error(e.message); process.exitCode = 2; }
  else throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Passing `--limit 0`, `--limit -5`, `--limit abc`, `--limit 2.5`, or a value that `Number()` coerces to NaN/non-integer.

Common situations: Computing the limit from a shell variable that ends up empty (`--limit ""` -> NaN); using a float from a config; sign/typo errors like `--limit -1`; expecting 0 to mean 'unlimited' (it does not).

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

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ce92af534eaae65f. Report an issue: GitHub.