GSA / GSA/openacr

`output` without `-c` reports success but renders a page with no criteria tables

Open
#364 0 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
128
Forks
36
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

### Environment

`@openacr/openacr@0.3.8` (npm), Node v24.13.0. Reproduced on the package's own shipped example (`openacr/drupal-10-16.yaml`), so it is not specific to any hand-authored document.

### Steps to reproduce

```console
$ openacr output -f node_modules/@openacr/openacr/openacr/drupal-10-16.yaml \
-t node_modules/@openacr/openacr/templates/openacr-html-0.1.0.handlebars \
-o drupal-no-c.html
Valid and output generated at drupal-no-c.html!

$ wc -c drupal-no-c.html
14081 drupal-no-c.html
$ grep -c "Success Criteria" drupal-no-c.html
0

$ openacr output -f node_modules/@openacr/openacr/openacr/drupal-10-16.yaml \
-c node_modules/@openacr/openacr/catalog/2.4-edition-wcag-2.1-en.yaml \
-t node_modules/@openacr/openacr/templates/openacr-html-0.1.0.handlebars \
-o drupal-with-c.html
Valid and output generated at drupal-with-c.html!

$ wc -c drupal-with-c.html
120701 drupal-with-c.html
$ grep -c "Success Criteria" drupal-with-c.html
4
```

### Expected

Rendering without `-c` should either resolve the catalog from the document's `catalog:` field, or fail loudly.

### Actual

Without `-c`, `output` reports success and writes a metadata-only shell — no criteria tables at all (14 KB vs 121 KB for the same document with the catalog supplied).

### Why it matters

A rendered ACR with every conformance table silently missing is exactly the artifact that gets attached to a procurement packet unread. The success message gives the operator no signal that the meaningful content was dropped.

Same root cause as #363 (`-c` is required for the document's own `catalog:` field to matter); filing separately because the failure mode differs — there it is a false `Valid!`, here it is a silently empty deliverable.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the issue with openacr/drupal-10-16.yaml, the HTML template, and the output command both with and without catalog/2.4-edition-wcag-2.1-en.yaml. Trace how the output command handles the document's catalog field and compare the generated HTML; done means the no-`-c` result either includes the criteria tables or fails loudly instead of reporting success.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, node.js
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
70/100

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