Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm · critical · Error

No Cohere API key was set.

Error message

No Cohere API key was set.

What it means

Thrown in the CohereEmbedder constructor when process.env.COHERE_API_KEY is falsy. Cohere is used via its OpenAI-compatible endpoint (https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1) through the OpenAI SDK, so the key gates client construction.

Source

Thrown at server/utils/EmbeddingEngines/cohere/index.js:6

const { toChunks, reportEmbeddingProgress } = require("../../helpers");

class CohereEmbedder {
  constructor() {
    if (!process.env.COHERE_API_KEY)
      throw new Error("No Cohere API key was set.");
    this.className = "CohereEmbedder";

    // Cohere exposes an OpenAI-compatible API which lets us reuse the OpenAI SDK
    // across the app instead of the cohere-ai package. The compatibility endpoint
    // manages the embedding `input_type` internally so we do not set it ourselves.
    // https://docs.cohere.com/docs/compatibility-api
    const { OpenAI: OpenAIApi } = require("openai");
    this.openai = new OpenAIApi({
      baseURL: "https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1",
      apiKey: process.env.COHERE_API_KEY,
    });

    this.model = process.env.EMBEDDING_MODEL_PREF || "embed-english-v3.0";

    // Limit of how many strings we can process in a single pass to stay with resource or network limits
    this.maxConcurrentChunks = 96; // Cohere's limit per request is 96
    this.embeddingMaxChunkLength = 1945; // https://docs.cohere.com/docs/embed-2 - assume a token is roughly 4 letters with some padding
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to 526360e320)

Solutions

1. Set COHERE_API_KEY to a valid key from https://dashboard.cohere.com.
2. Use the exact var name COHERE_API_KEY and restart the process.
3. Confirm the key has embed scope/permission in the Cohere dashboard.
4. Verify the var reaches the running process (log the boolean, not the value).

function assertCohereEnv() {
  if (!process.env.COHERE_API_KEY) {
    throw new Error('Missing env COHERE_API_KEY');
  }
}
assertCohereEnv();

try {
  new CohereEmbedder();
} catch (e) {
  if (/cohere api key/i.test(e.message)) { /* surface config error */ }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing CohereEmbedder while COHERE_API_KEY is unset/empty; selecting Cohere embeddings before provisioning a production key; using a trial key name under a different env var.

Common situations: Confusing COHERE_API_KEY with COHERE_EMBEDDING_API_KEY or another provider's key; .env not reloaded; CI without secrets; key revoked after usage policy change.

Related errors

• No Azure API key was set.
• No Gemini API key was set.
• No xAI API key was set.
• No Z.AI API key was set.
• No Azure API endpoint was set.

AI-assisted analysis of Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm@526360e320 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bb0d39a2907f6cd5. Report an issue: GitHub.