Let a catalog search name a scope without a query

[kev1n]

What was broken

The gateway's ranked search requires at least one of q, category, platform, in any combination. Measured against production today:

/catalog/search?platform=reddit   -> 200
/catalog/search?category=social   -> 200
/catalog/search                   -> 400 {"error":"name q, category, or platform"}

The node was stricter. searchRequest opened with const qs: IDataObject = { q: query } and the Query field was required: true, so "every reddit API" or "everything in the social category" was expressible over MCP and over curl but impossible from a workflow. Gateway PR getanyapi-com/anyapi#1013 relaxed the MCP side; this node was never updated.

What changed

• Query is no longer required. Its description now says to leave it empty to list everything a Category or Platform filter scopes to.
• searchRequest omits q entirely when the query is empty, matching how browseRequest already treats an absent category. It never sends q empty.
• A search naming none of the three is rejected at the operation boundary with a NodeOperationError, next to the existing Max Items validation, and never reaches the gateway.

discovery.ts keeps owning the wire contract and the node keeps owning n8n-facing errors, so the Seam AGENTS.md describes is preserved.

This does not change what a saved workflow sends

• A saved workflow with Query filled sends the same q it always sent. Proven by an assertion in the new test.

• A saved workflow that left Query empty was already sending q= empty, and the gateway reads an empty q as absent. Measured against production:

  /catalog/search?q=&category=social&limit=3  -> 200, first result bluesky.post
  /catalog/search?category=social&limit=3     -> 200, first result bluesky.post
  

  So dropping the empty q returns the identical result set.

• A saved workflow with neither now gets a clear node error instead of a gateway 400.

No limit, default, or cap was introduced. The tolerant-reader rules are untouched: the reader still rejects credit keys and any provider that is not "AnyAPI", and nothing derives or repairs relationships among returned fields.

Proof

Gate, on this branch:

$ npm run check          # n8n community-node lint, tsc + icons, node --test
ℹ tests 32
ℹ pass 32
ℹ fail 0

$ npm run canary:live
Live discovery canary passed (363 APIs, 1 search result, ahrefs.backlinks).

Both new tests were confirmed red against the pre-fix searchRequest and with the guard removed:

✖ ranked search scopes on a filter alone and omits q rather than sending it empty
  actual: { q: '', platform: 'reddit' }, expected: { platform: 'reddit' }
✖ ranked search naming no query, category, or platform never reaches the gateway
  did not match /Search needs a Query, or a Category or Platform filter to scope it\./

Live against https://api.getanyapi.com, driven through the node's real execute seam with the built dist/:

--- scope-only, Platform filter, empty Query
    URL sent: https://api.getanyapi.com/catalog/search?platform=reddit&limit=5
    total=11 ranking=keyword
    reddit.post              AnyAPI  $1.2/1k req
    reddit.post_comments     AnyAPI  $2/1k req
    reddit.post_transcript   AnyAPI  $2/1k req
    reddit.profile           AnyAPI  $1.2/1k req
    reddit.search            AnyAPI  $1.2/1k req

--- scope-only, Category filter, empty Query
    URL sent: https://api.getanyapi.com/catalog/search?category=social&limit=3
    total=167 ranking=keyword
    bluesky.post             AnyAPI  $2/1k req
    bluesky.profile          AnyAPI  $2/1k req
    bluesky.user_posts       AnyAPI  $2/1k req

--- existing form, Query filled
    URL sent: https://api.getanyapi.com/catalog/search?q=reddit+posts&limit=3
    total=52 ranking=semantic
    reddit.subreddit_posts   AnyAPI  $0.9/1k req
    reddit.user_posts        AnyAPI  $0.9/1k req
    reddit.trending_posts    AnyAPI  $0.36/1k req

--- no query and no filter: rejected locally, 0 requests sent
    Search needs a Query, or a Category or Platform filter to scope it.

Note the two rankings: a scope with no query ranks keyword, a query ranks semantic. Both come from the gateway; the node reports what it is told.

Not in this PR

No version bump, tag, or npm publish. Releasing is a separate decision.

The sibling fix for the CLI is getanyapi-com/cli#17.

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