jackwener/OpenCLI · error · CommandExecutionError

Mercury returned malformed create expense click result

Error message

Mercury returned malformed create expense click result

What it means

clickCreateExpenseButton() injects a script that looks for a 'Submit expense'/'New expense' button and returns { clicked, blocked }. It throws this error when the returned payload is an object but `clicked` or `blocked` is not a boolean, meaning the browser-side script did not produce the expected contract. This is a defensive shape check before any further action is taken.

Source

Thrown at clis/mercury/utils.js:194

            return style.visibility !== 'hidden' && style.display !== 'none' && node.offsetParent !== null;
          })
          .filter((node) => wanted.has(norm(node.innerText || node.textContent || '')));
        const dangerous = candidates.find((node) => {
          const container = node.closest('[role="dialog"], dialog, form, [aria-modal="true"]');
          const context = String(container?.innerText || container?.textContent || '').replace(/\\s+/g, ' ').trim();
          return Boolean(container) || /Review|receipt|amount|merchant|category|notes|expense date/i.test(context);
        });
        if (dangerous) {
          return { clicked: false, blocked: true, text: dangerous.innerText || dangerous.textContent || '' };
        }
        const el = candidates[0];
        if (!el) return { clicked: false, blocked: false };
        el.click();
        return { clicked: true, blocked: false, text: el.innerText || el.textContent || '' };
    })()`);
    const payload = assertObject(result, 'create expense click result');
    if (typeof payload.clicked !== 'boolean' || typeof payload.blocked !== 'boolean') {
        throw new CommandExecutionError('Mercury returned malformed create expense click result');
    }
    if (payload.blocked) {
        throw new CommandExecutionError('Mercury is already showing a submit/review surface; refusing to click a possible final Submit expense button');
    }
    return payload;
}

export async function assertCreateExpenseSurface(page) {
    const state = await page.evaluate(`(() => {
        const text = document.body?.innerText || '';
        return {
            url: location.href,
            title: document.title,
            hasFinalSubmit: /Submit expense/i.test(text) && /Review|receipt|amount|merchant|category|notes/i.test(text),
            hasForm: /receipt|amount|merchant|category|notes|expense date/i.test(text),
            bodyPreview: text.replace(/\\s+/g, ' ').trim().slice(0, 600)
        };
    })()`);

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Inspect the raw evaluate result and confirm `clicked` and `blocked` are present and boolean.
2. Reload the Mercury page and retry via the normal `opened` flow.
3. Align page.evaluate stubs/mocks in tests with the { clicked: boolean, blocked: boolean } contract.
4. Upgrade the mercury utils to the version matching the current UI.

Example fix

// before
if (typeof payload.clicked !== 'boolean' || typeof payload.blocked !== 'boolean') {
  throw new CommandExecutionError('Mercury returned malformed create expense click result');
}
// after
if (typeof payload.clicked !== 'boolean' || typeof payload.blocked !== 'boolean') {
  throw new CommandExecutionError(`Malformed create expense click result: ${JSON.stringify(payload)}`);
}

const payload = await page.evaluate(`(() => { ... })()`);
if (payload && typeof payload.clicked === 'boolean' && typeof payload.blocked === 'boolean') {
  await clickCreateExpenseButton(page);
}

function isCreateExpenseClickResult(v) {
  return v != null && typeof v === 'object'
    && typeof v.clicked === 'boolean' && typeof v.blocked === 'boolean';
}

try {
  const res = await clickCreateExpenseButton(page);
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof CommandExecutionError && /malformed create expense click result/.test(err.message)) {
    // reload page and retry once; else surface the error
  } else throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: The page.evaluate() injected in clickCreateExpenseButton returns an object missing or mistyping `clicked`/`blocked` — corrupted return value, mid-navigation, or a modified/older injected script.

Common situations: Mercury UI updates that break the script's early-return paths; evaluate called on a navigating/crashed page so serialization returns an unexpected value; test harnesses stubbing page.evaluate with wrong shapes.

Understand the failure class

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

Related errors

• Mercury returned malformed click result
• ${label}: ${String(payload.error)}
• ${label} returned malformed extraction payload
• coupang add-to-cart evaluation failed: ${error?.message || e
• Douyin search: unexpected evaluator payload shape

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/322b538ca7d1fe23. Report an issue: GitHub.