CLI/API: clip() passes documentElement to Defuddle, producing silently empty output

[Horace1423]

Summary

clip() in src/api.ts hands Defuddle the document element instead of the document. Defuddle returns an empty result for that input, so the CLI writes a note with every field blank — no error, no warning, exit code 0.

This is, I believe, the root cause of #745 (CLI: empty output and navigator error), which was closed as "the feature is still in progress". The navigator is not defined half of that report is separate; this issue is only about the silent empty output.

Reproduce

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-clipper.git
cd obsidian-clipper && npm install && npm run build:cli

cat > /tmp/t.json <<'JSON'
{
  "schemaVersion": "0.1.0",
  "name": "min",
  "behavior": "create",
  "noteNameFormat": "{{title}}",
  "path": "Clippings",
  "noteContentFormat": "{{content}}",
  "properties": [
    {"name": "title", "value": "{{title}}", "type": "text"},
    {"name": "words", "value": "{{words}}", "type": "number"}
  ]
}
JSON

node dist/cli.cjs "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown" -t /tmp/t.json -o /tmp/out.md

Actual — 115 bytes, all fields empty:

---
title:
words: 0
---

Expected — title: "Markdown", words: 2671, ~33 KB of body.

Not URL-specific. Same result with --html on a locally saved page, and with MDN, so it is not a fetch or SPA problem.

Cause

src/api.ts:

const documentElement = doc.documentElement || doc;
const defuddle = new DefuddleClass(documentElement as unknown as Document, { url });

Defuddle expects a Document. With linkedom, doc.documentElement is truthy, so an HTMLHtmlElement is passed and parsing yields nothing. Direct check against defuddle@0.19.2 + linkedom@0.18:

document        => title: "Markdown"  words: 2671  contentLen: 47204
documentElement => title: ""          words: 0     contentLen: 0

The browser extension is unaffected because popup.ts does not go through api.ts.

Fix

-	const defuddle = new DefuddleClass(documentElement as unknown as Document, { url });
+	const defuddle = new DefuddleClass(doc as unknown as Document, { url });

With that one line, the reproduction above yields title: "Markdown", words: 2671, 33 KB body. The documentElement local becomes unused and can be dropped.

I'd also suggest treating an empty Defuddle result as an error rather than writing the note — a blank note that lands silently is worse than a failure, especially for scripted use.

Environment

• obsidian-clipper main (package version 1.7.1), built via npm run build:cli
• Node v22.22.2, npm 10.9.7, Linux
• defuddle 0.19.2, linkedom 0.18.x