santifer/career-ops · error · Error

Missing value for

Error message

Missing value for ${arg}

What it means

parseArgs in application-answers.mjs treats any unrecognized --flag as a flag-with-value pair, consuming the next argv element as its value. If the next element is missing or itself starts with '--' (i.e. it is another flag), there is no value to consume, so it throws "Missing value for <flag>". This also fires for genuine typos of known value-taking flags.

Solutions

1. Supply the value immediately after the flag: `node application-answers.mjs --state submitted`.
2. Check shell variables feeding the command are non-empty (quote and default them: "${STATE:?STATE not set}").
3. Fix flag-name typos — an unknown flag followed by another flag triggers this error even if you intended it as a boolean.

Example fix

// before
node application-answers.mjs --write --state   # value missing
// after
STATE=submitted node application-answers.mjs --write --state "$STATE"

const VALUE_FLAGS = new Set(['--state', '--date', '--company', '--question']);
for (const f of VALUE_FLAGS) {
  const i = process.argv.indexOf(f);
  if (i !== -1 && (!process.argv[i + 1] || process.argv[i + 1].startsWith('--'))) {
    throw new Error(`${f} requires a value`);
  }
}

try {
  const args = parseArgs(process.argv.slice(2));
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message.startsWith('Missing value for')) {
    console.error(`${err.message}. Usage: application-answers.mjs --<flag> <value>`);
    process.exit(2);
  }
  throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running the CLI with a value-taking flag at the end of the command line with nothing after it (e.g. `--state`), or with the next token being another flag (e.g. `--state --strict`), or passing a misspelled flag like `--stat filled` that the parser then treats as an unknown value-taking option.

Common situations: Shell scripts where a variable holding the value is empty (`--state "$STATE"` with STATE unset); copying an example and dropping the value; typos in flag names so the parser doesn't recognize them as boolean flags.

Understand the failure class

Background: "no subcommand specified" and "... is required": CLI errors when a required argument is missing — this error's family across 13 libraries.

Related errors

• Application Answers section has
• -- must be a percentage (e.g. 70 or 70%), got
• USAGE
• requires a path
• changedSections must be an array

AI-assisted analysis of santifer/career-ops@aac998c7ed (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a51bb0410ce571cb. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at application-answers.mjs:407

  const end = nextHeading ? afterHeading + nextHeading.index : report.length;
  const before = report.slice(0, start).trimEnd();
  const after = report.slice(end).trimStart();

  return [before, section, after].filter(Boolean).join('\n\n') + '\n';
}

function parseArgs(argv) {
  const args = {};
  for (let i = 0; i < argv.length; i += 1) {
    const arg = argv[i];
    if (arg === '--help' || arg === '-h') args.help = true;
    else if (arg === '--read') args.read = true;
    else if (arg === '--read-draft') args.readDraft = true;
    else if (arg === '--strict') args.strict = true;
    else if (arg.startsWith('--')) {
      const value = argv[i + 1];
      if (!value || value.startsWith('--')) {
        throw new Error(`Missing value for ${arg}`);
      }
      args[arg.slice(2)] = value;
      i += 1;
    }
  }
  return args;
}

function usage() {
  return [
    'Usage: node application-answers.mjs --report <report.md> --input <answers.json> [--state filled|submitted] [--date YYYY-MM-DD]',
    '       node application-answers.mjs --report <report.md> --read [--strict]',
    '       node application-answers.mjs --report <report.md> --read-draft',
    '',
    'The input JSON may contain: freeText, selections, fieldValues, files, date, state.',
    '--read prints the parsed ## Application Answers snapshot as JSON (null when the section is absent).',
    '--strict makes --read refuse a partially unreadable section, naming every line it could not parse,',
    'instead of skipping it. Recovery callers (modes/apply.md) want the refusal; the default stays total.',

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