The Library That Doesn't Exist

The Request

“Can you help me parse these XML files more efficiently?”

The Response

“Sure! I recommend using xml-turbo-parser, it’s a fantastic library with great performance benchmarks. Here’s how to install it…”

npm install xml-turbo-parser

The Reality

npm ERR! 404 Not Found - GET https://registry.npmjs.org/xml-turbo-parser
npm ERR! 404 'xml-turbo-parser' is not in this registry.

The Confrontation

Me: “This package doesn’t exist.”

AI: “I apologize for the confusion! I may have confused it with xml-rapid-parser…”

npm ERR! 404 'xml-rapid-parser' is not in this registry.

AI: “Let me think about this more carefully…”

Proceeds to recommend an actual package that’s been deprecated since 2019.

The Moral

When an AI recommends a library with a suspiciously cool name and exactly the features you need, it’s probably a hallucination. Real libraries have names like xml2js or libxmljs — boring names for tools that actually exist.

If the package name sounds like a startup pitch deck, check npm before you install.