nexu-io/open-design · error · SystemExit

--search requires at least one source.

Error message

--search requires at least one source.

What it means

parse_search_flag() raises SystemExit('--search requires at least one source.') when, after splitting/lowering/stripping/filtering empty tokens, the resulting sources list is empty. This catches `--search ''`, `--search ','`, and `--search ' '` — the flag was provided but yielded no usable source. It fires after the unknown-source check, so all surviving tokens were valid but there were zero of them.

Source

Thrown at design-templates/last30days/scripts/last30days.py:85

            continue


atexit.register(_cleanup_children)


def parse_search_flag(raw: str) -> list[str]:
    sources = []
    for source in raw.split(","):
        source = source.strip().lower()
        if not source:
            continue
        normalized = pipeline.SEARCH_ALIAS.get(source, source)
        if normalized not in pipeline.MOCK_AVAILABLE_SOURCES:
            raise SystemExit(f"Unknown search source: {source}")
        if normalized not in sources:
            sources.append(normalized)
    if not sources:
        raise SystemExit("--search requires at least one source.")
    return sources


def slugify(value: str) -> str:
    slug = re.sub(r"[^a-z0-9]+", "-", value.lower()).strip("-")
    return slug or "last30days"


def save_output(
    report: schema.Report,
    emit: str,
    save_dir: str,
    suffix: str = "",
    synthesis_md: str | None = None,
) -> Path:
    from datetime import datetime
    path = Path(save_dir).expanduser().resolve()
    path.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

View on GitHub (pinned to 5be4028344)

Solutions

1. Either omit `--search` entirely (defaults to all available sources), or
2. Supply at least one valid source: `--search reddit`.
3. If driven by a shell variable, default it: `--search "${LIST:-reddit}"`.

Example fix

# before
python3.12 last30days.py --topic x --search "$LIST"   # LIST unset -> ''
# after
python3.12 last30days.py --topic x --search "${LIST:-reddit}"

tokens = [t.strip().lower() for t in raw.split(',') if t.strip()]
if not tokens:
    raise ValueError('--search needs at least one source (or omit the flag)')

When it happens

Trigger: `--search ""`, `--search ,,,`, or `--search " "` passed on the command line. The empty-string branch (`if not source: continue`) skips every token, leaving `sources == []`, which trips the final guard.

Common situations: Shell-quoting accident that passes an empty value; a script templating `--search $LIST` with LIST unset; a user who thought the flag was boolean and supplied an empty string.

Related errors

• Unknown search source: {source}
• Unsupported emit mode: {emit}
• [last30days] Cannot read --synthesis-file: {exc}
• [CompetitorsPlan] Cannot read plan file: {exc}
• [CompetitorsPlan] Invalid JSON: {exc}

AI-assisted analysis of nexu-io/open-design@5be4028344 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8769db4768cef85b. Report an issue: GitHub.