Hmbown/CodeWhale · error · anyhow::Error

No API key provided via stdin.

Error message

No API key provided via stdin.

What it means

The stdin branch of read_api_key_from_stdin(): stdin was piped (not a TTY) but its content trimmed to an empty string. The CLI distinguishes this from the no-pipe case (error 469) so scripts can tell an empty pipe from a missing one. Even a newline-only pipe trims to empty and fails.

Source

Thrown at crates/tui/src/lib.rs:7773

/// silently falling back to a route classifier or an older config.toml value.
fn apply_saved_reasoning_preference(config: &mut Config, settings: &crate::settings::Settings) {
    let Some(reasoning_effort) = settings.reasoning_effort.as_ref() else {
        return;
    };
    config.reasoning_effort = Some(reasoning_effort.clone());
    config.reasoning_effort_inferred_from_legacy_alias = false;
}

fn read_api_key_from_stdin() -> Result<String> {
    let mut stdin = io::stdin();
    if stdin.is_terminal() {
        bail!("No API key provided. Pass --api-key or pipe one via stdin.");
    }
    let mut buffer = String::new();
    stdin.read_to_string(&mut buffer)?;
    let api_key = buffer.trim().to_string();
    if api_key.is_empty() {
        bail!("No API key provided via stdin.");
    }
    Ok(api_key)
}

fn run_login(api_key: Option<String>) -> Result<()> {
    let api_key = match api_key {
        Some(key) => key,
        None => read_api_key_from_stdin()?,
    };
    let saved = config::save_api_key(&api_key)?;
    println!("Saved API key to {}", saved.describe());
    Ok(())
}

fn run_logout() -> Result<()> {
    config::clear_api_key()?;
    println!("Cleared saved API key.");
    Ok(())

View on GitHub (pinned to 0c42157ee5)

Solutions

1. Guard the source: `: "${VAR:?msg}"` fails fast on unset/empty variables
2. Verify a piped file is non-empty: `[ -s key.txt ]`
3. Or bypass stdin entirely with `codewhale login --api-key <key>`

Example fix

// before: VAR unset -> pipe delivers only a newline
$ echo "$MY_KEY" | codewhale login
Error: No API key provided via stdin.

// after
$ : "${MY_KEY:?MY_KEY is empty}" && printf '%s' "$MY_KEY" | codewhale login

[ -n "${CODEWHALE_API_KEY:-}" ] || { echo 'key variable empty' >&2; exit 2; }
printf '%s' "$CODEWHALE_API_KEY" | codewhale login

When it happens

Trigger: `codewhale login` with no --api-key and stdin piped but blank: an unset/empty variable (`echo "$VAR" |`), an empty file redirect, or a producer that emitted only whitespace.

Common situations: CI job where the secret's variable name is misspelled or the secret was never injected; piping from a failed command's empty output; redirecting an empty key file.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API key is required" / "API key not found" / "No API key was set": the missing-api-key error family across 16 libraries — this error's family across 16 libraries.

Related errors

• No API key provided. Pass --api-key or pipe one via stdin.
• empty API key provided
• API key input is unexpectedly large
• interactive key entry requires a terminal; use `--api-key-st
• Kimi is API-key-only in Codewhale. Create a key at https://p

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@0c42157ee5 (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a4a5ed2ec3abc0e2. Report an issue: GitHub.