ADO Task: Error: Crawl base URL should not have any query parameters

[damongr-msft]

Describe the bug

Our web site under test requires a valid query string to operate (otherwise it will error). Having this limitation makes it so the ADO task is unusable for our scenario.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior: Below is the yaml used to test, see the url with query strings

task: accessibility-insights@3
            displayName: Scan for accessibility issues
            inputs:
              hostingMode: 'dynamicSite'
              url: 'https://ourapp.contoso.com/?appid=1235&area=test' 
              serviceAccountName: $(serviceAccountName) # Key vault secret name for the service account name
              serviceAccountPassword: $(serviceAccountPassword) # Key vault secret name for the service password
              authType: 'AAD'
              singleWorker: true
              uploadOutputArtifact: true         

CodePen repro example

The above yaml outputs the error:

##[error][Exception]ErrorWithCause: An error occurred while scanning website page https://ourapp.contoso/?appid=1235&area=test
    at Logger.trackExceptionAny (D:\a\_tasks\accessibility-insights_4811a442-2fd3-5aa8-ba1a-14cb7e24c113\3.1.0\index.js:189142:29)
    at Scanner.<anonymous> (D:\a\_tasks\accessibility-insights_4811a442-2fd3-5aa8-ba1a-14cb7e24c113\3.1.0\index.js:190329:29)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at fulfilled (D:\a\_tasks\accessibility-insights_4811a442-2fd3-5aa8-ba1a-14cb7e24c113\3.1.0\index.js:190244:58)
    at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)
caused by: Error: Crawl base URL should not have any query parameters. https://ourapp.contoso/?appid=1235&area=test

Expected behavior

Expected to run against the web site as it requires query parameters to run properly

Context (please complete the following information)

N/A

Are you willing to submit a PR?

Maybe

Did you search for similar existing issues?

Yes

Additional context

This issue has been marked as ready for team triage; we will triage it in our weekly review and update the issue. Thank you for contributing to Accessibility Insights!

[brocktaylor7]

Hello @damongr-msft,
Due to a limitation of an upstream library from us, unfortunately you can't have a query parameter in the url input. There is a workaround that is a bit quirky but is better than nothing. Here's how to implement the workaround:

1. Specify URLs with query parameters using the inputUrls input
2. Set the url input to the URL excluding the query parameter
3. Set the maxUrls input to the same number of URLs specified in the inputUrls input.

During execution, the inputUrls are added to the processing queue first, so it will process the URLs with the query parameter and will stop scanning before it adds the main url without the query parameter to the queue. The downside is that you can't properly crawl any URLs using a query parameter.

We're still looking into the feasibility of changing this in the upstream package that causes this behavior, but don't currently have a timeline for when this might be fully resolved.