Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm · error

No OpenRouter API key was set.

Error message

No OpenRouter API key was set.

What it means

The OpenRouterEmbedder constructor throws immediately when OPENROUTER_API_KEY is unset or empty. The key is required to build the OpenAI SDK client pointed at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 that performs embedding calls, so provider selection fails fast before any request is made.

Solutions

1. Create a key at openrouter.ai/keys and set OPENROUTER_API_KEY in .env.
2. Restart the server or recreate the container after saving.
3. Confirm the key has credit/access for embedding models (default model is baai/bge-m3).
4. Verify the variable name spelling and that no quotes/spaces surround the value.

Example fix

# .env — before
EMBEDDING_ENGINE=openrouter
EMBEDDING_MODEL_PREF=baai/bge-m3

# .env — after
EMBEDDING_ENGINE=openrouter
EMBEDDING_MODEL_PREF=baai/bge-m3
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-...

if (!process.env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY) {
  throw new Error(
    "OpenRouter embedder selected but OPENROUTER_API_KEY is missing — set it before use."
  );
}
const { OpenRouterEmbedder } = require("server/utils/EmbeddingEngines/openRouter");
const embedder = new OpenRouterEmbedder();

function hasOpenRouterEmbedderConfig(env = process.env) {
  return (
    typeof env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY === "string" && env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY.length > 0
  );
}

try {
  new OpenRouterEmbedder();
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message === "No OpenRouter API key was set.") {
    // route the user to provider settings instead of failing the embedding job
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Choosing OpenRouter as the embedding engine without creating/exporting an API key at openrouter.ai; adding the key to .env after the process started; a typo in the variable name; docker env not passed through.

Common situations: Users who have an OpenRouter key for the LLM but a differently named/missing one for embeddings; fresh OpenRouter accounts with no key generated; CI environments missing the env.

Understand the failure class

Background: "environment variable is not set" and "Missing keys in environment" errors: what missing required env var messages mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• No OpenAI API key was set.
• No Voyage AI API key was set.
• No embedding model was set.
• No Minimax API key was set.
• No Mistral API key was set.

AI-assisted analysis of Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm@3aec848f28 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9c7a192a4ce5988d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

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

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

class OpenRouterEmbedder {
  constructor() {
    if (!process.env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY)
      throw new Error("No OpenRouter API key was set.");
    this.className = "OpenRouterEmbedder";
    const { OpenAI: OpenAIApi } = require("openai");
    this.openai = new OpenAIApi({
      baseURL: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
      apiKey: process.env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY,
      defaultHeaders: {
        "HTTP-Referer": "https://anythingllm.com",
        "X-Title": "AnythingLLM",
      },
    });
    this.model = process.env.EMBEDDING_MODEL_PREF || "baai/bge-m3";

    // Limit of how many strings we can process in a single pass to stay with resource or network limits
    this.maxConcurrentChunks = 500;

    // https://openrouter.ai/docs/api/reference/embeddings
    this.embeddingMaxChunkLength = 8_191;
  }

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