jackwener__opencli/docs/developer/ts-adapter.md

TypeScript Adapter Guide

Use TypeScript adapters when you need browser-side logic, multi-step flows, DOM manipulation, or complex data extraction that goes beyond simple API fetching.

Basic Structure

import { cli, Strategy } from '@jackwener/opencli/registry';
import { CommandExecutionError, EmptyResultError } from '@jackwener/opencli/errors';

cli({
  site: 'mysite',
  name: 'search',
  description: 'Search MySite',
  domain: 'www.mysite.com',
  strategy: Strategy.COOKIE,      // PUBLIC | COOKIE | HEADER
  args: [
    { name: 'query', required: true, help: 'Search query' },
    { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 10, help: 'Max results' },
  ],
  columns: ['title', 'url', 'date'],

  func: async (page, kwargs) => {
    const { query, limit = 10 } = kwargs;

    // Navigate and extract data
    await page.goto('https://www.mysite.com');

    const data = await page.evaluate(`
      (async () => {
        const res = await fetch('/api/search?q=${encodeURIComponent(String(query))}', {
          credentials: 'include'
        });
        return (await res.json()).results;
      })()
    `);

    if (!Array.isArray(data)) throw new CommandExecutionError('MySite returned an unexpected response');
    if (!data.length) throw new EmptyResultError('mysite search', 'Try a different keyword');

    return data.slice(0, Number(limit)).map((item: any) => ({
      title: item.title,
      url: item.url,
      date: item.created_at,
    }));
  },
});

Strategy Types

Strategy	Constant	Use Case
Public	Strategy.PUBLIC	No auth needed
Cookie	Strategy.COOKIE	Browser session cookies
Header	Strategy.HEADER	Custom headers/tokens

The page Object

The page parameter provides browser interaction methods:

• page.goto(url) — Navigate to a URL
• page.evaluate(script) — Execute JavaScript in the page context
• page.waitForSelector(selector) — Wait for an element
• page.click(selector) — Click an element
• page.type(selector, text) — Type text into an input

The kwargs Object

Contains parsed CLI arguments as key-value pairs. Always destructure with defaults:

const { query, limit = 10, format = 'json' } = kwargs;

For most search/read/detail commands, the main subject should be positional (opencli mysite search "rust", opencli mysite article 123) instead of a named flag such as --query or --id. Keep named flags for optional modifiers.

Error Handling

Prefer throwing CliError subclasses from src/errors.ts for expected adapter failures:

• AuthRequiredError for missing login / cookies
• EmptyResultError for empty but valid responses
• CommandExecutionError for unexpected API or browser failures
• TimeoutError for site timeouts
• ArgumentError for invalid user input

Avoid raw Error for normal adapter control flow. This keeps top-level CLI output consistent and preserves hints for users.

AI-Assisted Development

Use the opencli-adapter-author skill plus the opencli browser * primitives to scaffold and verify adapters end-to-end:

# Recon on the target site
opencli browser open https://example.com
opencli browser network
opencli browser state

# Scaffold + verify
opencli browser init mysite/trending
opencli browser verify mysite/trending

See AI Workflow for the full loop and the adapter-author skill for the step-by-step runbook.