From c5ebdc9362b34b712c0a89a056c3556bc3da845b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matthew Jackson <matthew@pq.io>
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2026 12:24:10 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] Fix answer saving: normalize answers format, improve label
 dedup
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
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- normalizeAnswers() handles both object {"q":"a"} and array [{pattern,answer}]
  formats — prevents silent failures when answers.json format varies
- getLabel() now strips "Required" suffix before dedup, uses smarter
  prefix-repeat detection instead of simple half-split
- telegram_answers.mjs also normalizes on load
- Cleaned existing answers.json on AWS: removed duplicated text in patterns,
  fixed bad AI answer for "Current company", generalized Geotab-specific patterns

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 lib/form_filler.mjs      | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 lib/telegram_answers.mjs |  8 +++++++-
 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/form_filler.mjs b/lib/form_filler.mjs
index f3c419f..b1c31c1 100644
--- a/lib/form_filler.mjs
+++ b/lib/form_filler.mjs
@@ -11,10 +11,24 @@ import {
   AUTOCOMPLETE_WAIT, AUTOCOMPLETE_TIMEOUT, ANTHROPIC_API_URL
 } from './constants.mjs';
 
+/**
+ * Normalize answers from either format:
+ *   Object: { "question": "answer" }  →  [{ pattern: "question", answer: "answer" }]
+ *   Array:  [{ pattern, answer }]      →  as-is
+ */
+function normalizeAnswers(answers) {
+  if (!answers) return [];
+  if (Array.isArray(answers)) return answers;
+  if (typeof answers === 'object') {
+    return Object.entries(answers).map(([pattern, answer]) => ({ pattern, answer: String(answer) }));
+  }
+  return [];
+}
+
 export class FormFiller {
   constructor(profile, answers, opts = {}) {
     this.profile = profile;
-    this.answers = answers || []; // [{ pattern, answer }]
+    this.answers = normalizeAnswers(answers); // [{ pattern, answer }]
     this.apiKey = opts.apiKey || null;
     this.answersPath = opts.answersPath || null; // path to answers.json for saving
     this.jobContext = opts.jobContext || {}; // { title, company }
@@ -157,16 +171,20 @@ export class FormFiller {
         }
       }
 
-      // Clean up — remove trailing * from required field labels
-      // Also deduplicate labels like "Phone country codePhone country code"
+      // Clean up label text
       let raw = forLabel || ariaLabel || linked || ancestorLabel || node.placeholder || node.name || '';
-      // Normalize whitespace and remove trailing * from required field labels
-      raw = raw.replace(/\s+/g, ' ').replace(/\s*\*\s*$/, '').trim();
-      // Deduplicate repeated label text (LinkedIn renders label text twice sometimes)
-      // e.g. "Phone country codePhone country code" → "Phone country code"
-      if (raw.length > 4) {
-        const half = Math.ceil(raw.length / 2);
-        if (raw.slice(0, half) === raw.slice(half, half * 2)) raw = raw.slice(0, half).trim();
+      // Normalize whitespace, strip trailing *, strip "Required" suffix
+      raw = raw.replace(/\s+/g, ' ').replace(/\s*\*\s*$/, '').replace(/\s*Required\s*$/i, '').trim();
+      // Deduplicate repeated label text (LinkedIn renders label text twice)
+      // e.g. "First sales hire?First sales hire?" → "First sales hire?"
+      if (raw.length > 8) {
+        for (let len = Math.ceil(raw.length / 2); len >= 4; len--) {
+          const candidate = raw.slice(0, len);
+          if (raw.startsWith(candidate + candidate)) {
+            raw = candidate.trim();
+            break;
+          }
+        }
       }
       return raw;
     }).catch(() => '');
diff --git a/lib/telegram_answers.mjs b/lib/telegram_answers.mjs
index d3755a7..54dec57 100644
--- a/lib/telegram_answers.mjs
+++ b/lib/telegram_answers.mjs
@@ -33,7 +33,13 @@ function saveOffset(offset) {
 
 function loadAnswers(path) {
   if (!existsSync(path)) return [];
-  return JSON.parse(readFileSync(path, 'utf8'));
+  const raw = JSON.parse(readFileSync(path, 'utf8'));
+  // Normalize: support both object {"q":"a"} and array [{pattern,answer}] formats
+  if (Array.isArray(raw)) return raw;
+  if (raw && typeof raw === 'object') {
+    return Object.entries(raw).map(([pattern, answer]) => ({ pattern, answer: String(answer) }));
+  }
+  return [];
 }
 
 function saveAnswers(path, answers) {