usestrix/strix · error · ValueError

Target must be a non-empty string

Error message

Target must be a non-empty string

What it means

infer_target_type requires a non-empty string target and raises immediately for empty strings, whitespace-only strings (they survive this check but fail later), or non-string values like None. It is the router that classifies a raw --target value into repository/postman/api_spec/local_code/web_application, so it must have real text to parse.

Source

Thrown at strix/interface/utils.py:1115

        instruction_block=instruction_block,
        metadata=metadata,
    )


def _is_http_git_repo(url: str) -> bool:
    check_url = f"{url.rstrip('/')}/info/refs?service=git-upload-pack"
    try:
        with requests.get(check_url, headers={"User-Agent": "git/2.43.0"}, timeout=10) as resp:
            if resp.status_code >= 400:
                return resp.status_code == 401
            return "x-git-upload-pack-advertisement" in resp.headers.get("Content-Type", "")
    except (requests.RequestException, ValueError):
        return False


def infer_target_type(target: str) -> tuple[str, dict[str, str]]:  # noqa: PLR0911
    if not target or not isinstance(target, str):
        raise ValueError("Target must be a non-empty string")

    target = target.strip()

    if target.startswith("git@"):
        return "repository", {"target_repo": target}

    if target.startswith("git://"):
        return "repository", {"target_repo": target}

    parsed = urlparse(target)
    if parsed.scheme == "postman":
        collection_uid = f"{parsed.netloc}{parsed.path}".strip("/")
        if not collection_uid:
            raise ValueError(
                f"Missing Postman collection id in '{target}' (expected postman://<collection-uid>)"
            )
        details = {
            "target_spec": target,

View on GitHub (pinned to 8551339130)

Solutions

1. Pass a non-empty target string, e.g. a URL, git@... SSH target, postman:// id, or local path.
2. In scripts, guard with a check like [ -n "$TARGET" ] before invoking strix.
3. If the value may be a Path, convert with str(path) before calling.

Example fix

# before
result = infer_target_type(os.environ.get("SCAN_TARGET"))  # None when unset

# after
target = os.environ.get("SCAN_TARGET") or ""
if not target.strip():
    raise SystemExit("SCAN_TARGET is not set")
result = infer_target_type(target)

target = target.strip() if isinstance(target, str) else ""
if not target:
    raise SystemExit("A non-empty --target is required")
result = infer_target_type(target)

def is_non_empty_str(target: object) -> bool:
    return isinstance(target, str) and bool(target.strip())

try:
    ttype, details = infer_target_type(target)
except ValueError as e:
    if str(e) == "Target must be a non-empty string":
        raise SystemExit(f"Usage: provide a target. Got {target!r}") from e
    raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling infer_target_type('') or infer_target_type(None); a CLI invocation where the -t/--target argument was consumed from an environment variable or script variable that ended up empty.

Common situations: CI pipelines building the command dynamically with an unset variable ($TARGET empty); shell scripts where a variable expansion produced an empty string; passing a Path object instead of str.

Related errors

• Invalid target: {target} Target must be one of: - A valid UR
• --target-list path must not be empty.
• Target list file '{path_str}' is not an existing file.
• Invalid target '{target}': {e}
• Unsupported scope mode: {scope_mode}

AI-assisted analysis of usestrix/strix@8551339130 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bd6c60a4e637e0a8. Report an issue: GitHub.