santifer/career-ops · error · Error

runSeedScan: unknown seed

Error message

runSeedScan: unknown seed "${seedId}"

What it means

runSeedScan looks up the requested seed source in the SEED_SOURCES registry; this library throws when the seedId key does not exist. It is a fail-fast guard so an unknown identifier aborts before any network fetching happens.

Solutions

1. Print the valid seed IDs by inspecting the SEED_SOURCES object in scan-ats-full.mjs and pick one exactly
2. Fix the seedId spelling in the command line or config
3. Update to the current version if the seed was renamed and use its new ID
4. Wrap the call in a check: if (!SEED_SOURCES[seedId]) list keys before running

Example fix

// before
await runSeedScan('ats-companies', opts, ctx, seenUrls, label);
// after
import { SEED_SOURCES } from './scan-ats-full.mjs';
if (!(seedId in SEED_SOURCES)) {
  console.error(`Unknown seed "${seedId}". Valid: ${Object.keys(SEED_SOURCES).join(', ')}`);
  process.exit(1);
}
await runSeedScan(seedId, opts, ctx, seenUrls, label);

import { SEED_SOURCES } from './scan-ats-full.mjs';
if (!(seedId in SEED_SOURCES)) {
  throw new Error(`Unknown seed "${seedId}". Valid seeds: ${Object.keys(SEED_SOURCES).join(', ')}`);
}

try {
  await runSeedScan(seedId, opts, ctx, seenUrls, label);
} catch (err) {
  if (String(err.message).startsWith('runSeedScan: unknown seed')) {
    console.error(`${err.message}. Valid seeds: ${Object.keys(SEED_SOURCES).join(', ')}`);
  } else throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling runSeedScan(seedId, ...) with a seedId that is not a key of SEED_SOURCES, e.g. a typo, a renamed/removed seed, or an ID read from config that the CLI never registered.

Common situations: Users pass a seed name on the CLI or in a config file after a version renamed seeds; scripts hardcode an old seed ID; programmatic callers build the ID dynamically and mistype it.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Application Answers section has
• requires a path
• ⚠️ Could not save report
• --from and --to must both be supplied together (or neither…
• --from ( ) must not be after --to ( ).

AI-assisted analysis of santifer/career-ops@e7abd431fc (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7aad84f25d826c02. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at scan-ats-full.mjs:556

const SEED_PROVIDERS = [greenhouse, lever, ashby];

/**
 * Scan a VC portfolio seed source and return matching job offers.
 * Companies are converted to PortalEntry shape, then each ATS provider's
 * detect() is tried in order (greenhouse → lever → ashby). The first hit
 * wins and its fetch() is called — identical to how portals.yml tracked
 * companies flow through scan.mjs.
 *
 * @param {string}   seedId      Key from SEED_SOURCES (e.g. 'yc').
 * @param {object}   opts        Parsed CLI options.
 * @param {object}   ctx         HTTP context from makeHttpCtx().
 * @param {Set}      seenUrls    Shared dedup set (mutated in place).
 * @param {string}   label       Human-readable source label for logs.
 * @returns {Promise<object[]>}  New job offers (same shape as ATS scan offers).
 */
export async function runSeedScan(seedId, opts, ctx, seenUrls, label) {
  const source = SEED_SOURCES[seedId];
  if (!source) throw new Error(`runSeedScan: unknown seed "${seedId}"`);

  let companies;
  try {
    companies = await source.fetch();
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(`⚠️  ${seedId}: could not fetch portfolio — ${err.message}`);
    return [];
  }

  // Apply the --limit cap here too (by slug, consistent with sampleCompanies).
  const capped = opts.limit < companies.length
    ? (opts.shuffle
      ? (() => { const c = companies.slice(); for (let i = c.length - 1; i > 0; i--) { const j = Math.floor(Math.random() * (i + 1)); [c[i], c[j]] = [c[j], c[i]]; } return c.slice(0, opts.limit); })()
      : companies.slice(0, opts.limit))
    : companies;

  const cutoff = Date.now() - opts.sinceDays * 86_400_000;
  const offers = [];

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