jackwener/OpenCLI · error · ArgumentError

zhihu search query must not be empty

Error message

zhihu search query must not be empty

What it means

requireQuery in clis/zhihu/search.js throws ArgumentError when the search query string is empty after trimming. The CLI refuses to issue a Zhihu search with a blank query, since that request is meaningless and would fail server-side. Thrown before any network call.

Source

Thrown at clis/zhihu/search.js:57

    return '';
}

const MAX_LIMIT = 1000;
const PAGE_SIZE = 20;
const TYPES = ['all', 'answer', 'article', 'question'];

function parseLimit(value) {
    const limit = Number(value ?? 10);
    if (!Number.isInteger(limit) || limit <= 0 || limit > MAX_LIMIT) {
        throw new ArgumentError(`zhihu search --limit must be a positive integer no greater than ${MAX_LIMIT}`, 'Use a normal-sized limit to avoid slow requests or Zhihu risk controls');
    }
    return limit;
}

function requireQuery(value) {
    const query = String(value || '').trim();
    if (!query) {
        throw new ArgumentError('zhihu search query must not be empty', 'Example: opencli zhihu search codex');
    }
    return query;
}

function requireType(value) {
    const type = String(value || 'all');
    if (!TYPES.includes(type)) {
        throw new ArgumentError(`zhihu search --type must be one of: ${TYPES.join(', ')}`, 'Example: opencli zhihu search codex --type answer');
    }
    return type;
}

function unwrapEvaluateResult(payload) {
    if (payload && typeof payload === 'object' && 'data' in payload && 'session' in payload) return payload.data;
    return payload;
}

function requireSearchPayload(data, url) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Provide a non-empty search term: opencli zhihu search codex
  2. Quote the query in scripts so empty variables do not vanish as arguments
  3. Guard the variable in scripts: [ -n "$Q" ] || exit 1 before invoking the CLI

Example fix

// before
opencli zhihu search $Q   # Q is unset -> empty query
// after
[ -n "$Q" ] && opencli zhihu search "$Q"
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const q = String(rawQuery ?? '').trim();
if (!q) throw new Error('Search query must be a non-empty string, e.g. "codex"');

Type guard

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

Try / catch

try {
  await runSearch({ query: q });
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof ArgumentError && err.message.includes('query must not be empty')) {
    console.error('Usage: opencli zhihu search <query>');
    process.exitCode = 2;
    return;
  }
  throw err;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running `opencli zhihu search` with no query argument, or `--query ""` / `--query " "` where the value trims to empty.

Common situations: Scripting the CLI with an unquoted shell variable that is unset/empty (e.g. $Q missing); passing a value containing only whitespace; forgetting the positional argument.

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/136b3c6d08b478da. Report an issue: GitHub.