Failed to parse config from environment variables: BOUNDARY_

Error message

Failed to parse config from environment variables: BOUNDARY_{}: {e}

What it means

The BAML tracing API wrapper reads BOUNDARY_* environment variables for its configuration and parses each with FromStr. When a variable's raw string cannot be parsed into the expected type, `parse_field` wraps the underlying parse error in this anyhow error, naming the offending variable.

Solutions

Inspect the BOUNDARY_<KEY> named in the message and set it to a value parseable as the expected type (e.g. bool: true/false/1/0).
Remove surrounding quotes, spaces, and trailing newlines from the env var value (`export BOUNDARY_VERBOSE=true`, not `"true" `).
Unset the variable entirely if you want the default, instead of supplying an unparseable placeholder.

Example fix

// before
export BOUNDARY_VERBOSE="True "   // fails FromStr<bool>
// after
export BOUNDARY_VERBOSE=true

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Shell: sanity-check BOUNDARY_* vars before launching
env | grep '^BOUNDARY_' | while IFS='=' read -r k v; do
  case "$k" in
    *VERBOSE|*ENABLED) [[ "$v" =~ ^(true|false|1|0)$ ]] || { echo "bad bool $k=$v"; exit 1; } ;;
    *PORT|*TIMEOUT|*LIMIT) [[ "$v" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]] || { echo "bad number $k=$v"; exit 1; } ;;
  esac
done

Try / catch

// Rust: wrap config construction
let cfg = Config::from_env().map_err(|e| {
    eprintln!("{e:#}; check the named BOUNDARY_ variable's format");
    e
})?;

Prevention

Avoid quotes and whitespace in BOUNDARY_* env values.
Use lowercase true/false (or 1/0) for boolean variables.
Scrub CI secrets for trailing newlines before exporting them.
Unset variables you do not intend to override.

When it happens

Trigger: Setting a BOUNDARY_* env var (e.g. BOUNDARY_URL-related numeric/boolean fields) to a value that fails FromStr parsing, e.g. `BOUNDARY_VERBOSE=notabool` or a port set to `abc`.

Common situations: Typos or stray quotes/whitespace in environment values (CI secrets with trailing newline); setting a boolean to 'True' where the parser expects lowercase 'true' or '1'; mixing up which variable takes an integer vs a string.

Understand the failure class

Background: "is not a valid" / "Invalid ... value" environment variable errors: how libraries validate env vars and what to do when they reject yours — this error's family across 48 libraries.

Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of BoundaryML/baml@bd85ce9dee (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7199b537632a3c94. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at engine/baml-runtime/src/tracing/api_wrapper/env_setup.rs:66

        // Mirror `envy::prefixed("BOUNDARY_")`: keep only BOUNDARY_-prefixed keys,
        // strip the prefix, and lowercase the remainder to match field names.
        let map: std::collections::HashMap<String, String> = env_vars
            .filter_map(|(k, v)| {
                k.as_ref()
                    .strip_prefix("BOUNDARY_")
                    .map(|rest| (rest.to_ascii_lowercase(), v.as_ref().to_string()))
            })
            .collect();

        let get = |k: &str| map.get(k).cloned();

        fn parse_field<T>(key: &str, raw: &str) -> Result<T>
        where
            T: std::str::FromStr,
            T::Err: std::fmt::Display,
        {
            raw.parse::<T>().map_err(|e| {
                anyhow::anyhow!(
                    "Failed to parse config from environment variables: BOUNDARY_{}: {e}",
                    key.to_ascii_uppercase()
                )
            })
        }

        let config = Config {
            base_url: get("base_url").unwrap_or_else(default_base_url),
            secret: get("secret"),
            project_id: get("project_id"),
            sessions_id: get("sessions_id").unwrap_or_else(default_sessions_id),
            stage: get("stage").unwrap_or_else(default_stage),
            host_name: get("host_name").unwrap_or_else(default_host_name),
            log_redaction_enabled: match get("log_redaction_enabled") {
                Some(s) => parse_field("log_redaction_enabled", &s)?,
                None => false,
            },
            log_redaction_placeholder: get("log_redaction_placeholder")

View on GitHub (pinned to bd85ce9dee)