jackwener/OpenCLI · error · CommandExecutionError

Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: missing source URL

Error message

Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: missing source URL.

What it means

addSource extracted a source row that has no usable URL: source.url, source.href, and source.safe_url are all empty. If the row carries other identifying data (title, matched_text, metadata) the library refuses to emit a URL-less citation and throws, because a source without a link is unusable downstream.

Source

Thrown at clis/chatgpt/utils.js:1354

function extractDeepResearchSourcesFromReportMessage(reportMessage) {
    const metadata = reportMessage?.metadata && typeof reportMessage.metadata === 'object'
        ? reportMessage.metadata
        : {};
    const references = Array.isArray(metadata.content_references) ? metadata.content_references : [];
    const safeUrls = Array.isArray(metadata.safe_urls) ? metadata.safe_urls : [];
    const groups = Array.isArray(metadata.search_result_groups) ? metadata.search_result_groups : [];
    const byUrl = new Map();

    const addSource = (source = {}, label = 'source') => {
        if (!source || typeof source !== 'object') {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: expected object source row.`);
        }
        const rawUrl = String(source.url || source.href || source.safe_url || '').trim();
        const title = String(source.title || source.name || source.text || '').trim();
        if (!rawUrl) {
            if (title || source.matched_text || source.metadata) {
                throw new CommandExecutionError(`Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: missing source URL.`);
            }
            return;
        }
        if (!/^https?:\/\//i.test(rawUrl)) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: invalid source URL.`);
        }
        if (!byUrl.has(rawUrl)) {
            byUrl.set(rawUrl, { title, url: rawUrl });
        } else if (title && !byUrl.get(rawUrl).title) {
            byUrl.get(rawUrl).title = title;
        }
    };

    for (const reference of references) {
        const hasDirectSource = reference && typeof reference === 'object'
            && (reference.url || reference.href || reference.safe_url || reference.title || reference.name || reference.text || reference.matched_text);
        if (hasDirectSource) addSource(reference, 'content reference');
        if (reference?.matched_text) addSource({ title: reference.matched_text, url: reference.url }, 'matched content reference');

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Log the offending row and add the missing key mapping (e.g. source.link or source.target_href) to the URL extraction chain.
2. Pre-filter rows: only pass rows where (s.url||s.href||s.safe_url) is a non-empty string.
3. Normalize upstream data so every source row carries a URL before calling the extractor.
4. Catch the error and skip that source row, degrading to a citation-less result.

Example fix

// before
collectSources(row, addSource);
// after
const hasUrl = row && typeof row === 'object' && String(row.url || row.href || row.safe_url || '').trim();
if (hasUrl) collectSources(row, addSource);

rows.forEach(r => {
  const u = String(r?.url || r?.href || r?.safe_url || '').trim();
  if (!u && (r?.title || r?.matched_text || r?.metadata)) console.warn('source row missing URL', r);
});

const hasSourceUrl = (s) => !!s && typeof s === 'object' && String(s.url || s.href || s.safe_url || '').trim().length > 0;

try {
  extractDeepResearchSources(metadata);
} catch (err) {
  if (String(err.message).includes('missing source URL')) {
    console.warn('skipping citation without URL:', err.message);
    return { sources: [], degraded: true };
  }
  throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: A source row object exists (passes the object check) but rawUrl trims to '' — all of source.url, source.href, source.safe_url are missing/empty — while at least one of title, matched_text, or metadata is present.

Common situations: Search-result groups whose entries only have matched_text snippets; backend sending annotation rows with title but stripped/omitted URL fields (e.g. after redaction or a new field name); tests feeding hand-built fixture objects missing url keys.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Missing required field" and "field is required" errors: why libraries reject payloads that omit mandatory fields — this error's family across 20 libraries.

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• ${label} did not include a stable ${field}.
• Bilibili comments reply ${index + 1} was missing rpid
• Bilibili comments reply ${index + 1} was missing ctime
• Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: expected object so
• Malformed ChatGPT Deep Research ${label}: invalid source URL

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/43090e83788a848a. Report an issue: GitHub.