What causes "Failed to initialize authentication storage" in can1357/oh-my-pi?

Run the app's auth/login flow once to create the auth storage on this machine/user.

Failed to initialize authentication storage

Error message

Failed to initialize authentication storage

What it means

runSearchQuery needs an AuthStorage instance to access provider credentials and a ModelRegistry. If the caller supplies neither authStorage nor modelRegistry and discoverAuthStorage() cannot locate/create one (no stored auth on disk), it throws 'Failed to initialize authentication storage'. It is an environment/setup failure, not a search failure.

Source

Thrown at packages/coding-agent/src/web/search/index.ts:298

		},
	};
}

/**
 * Execute a web search query for CLI/testing workflows.
 *
 * `authStorage` may be omitted; in that case we discover one via the standard
 * factory (`discoverAuthStorage`), which honours `OMP_AUTH_BROKER_URL` and
 * otherwise opens the local SQLite credential store.
 */
export async function runSearchQuery(
	params: SearchQueryParams,
	options: { authStorage?: AuthStorage; modelRegistry?: ModelRegistry; sessionId?: string; signal?: AbortSignal } = {},
): Promise<{ content: Array<{ type: "text"; text: string }>; details: SearchRenderDetails }> {
	const createdAuthStorage = options.authStorage || options.modelRegistry ? undefined : await discoverAuthStorage();
	const authStorage = options.authStorage ?? options.modelRegistry?.authStorage ?? createdAuthStorage;
	if (!authStorage) {
		throw new Error("Failed to initialize authentication storage");
	}
	const modelRegistry = options.modelRegistry ?? (createdAuthStorage ? new ModelRegistry(authStorage) : undefined);
	try {
		return await executeSearch("cli-web-search", params, {
			authStorage,
			modelRegistry,
			sessionId: options.sessionId,
			signal: options.signal,
		});
	} finally {
		createdAuthStorage?.close();
	}
}

/**
 * Web search tool implementation.
 *
 * Supports the configured web-search provider chain with automatic fallback.

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

Run the app's auth/login flow once to create the auth storage on this machine/user.
Pass an explicit AuthStorage (or a ModelRegistry with authStorage) via options instead of relying on discovery.
Check HOME/USERPROFILE and app config directory resolution — discovery may look in the wrong place in daemons/CI.
Reuse a single shared authStorage instance you create at startup and thread it through all tool calls.

Example fix

// before
await runSearchQuery(params); // relies on discoverAuthStorage()
// after
import { discoverAuthStorage } from "...";
const authStorage = await discoverAuthStorage();
if (!authStorage) throw new Error("Run `omp auth` to initialize credentials");
await runSearchQuery(params, { authStorage });

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const authStorage = options.authStorage ?? options.modelRegistry?.authStorage ?? (await discoverAuthStorage());
if (!authStorage) {
  throw new Error("No auth storage — run the app's auth/login flow or pass authStorage explicitly");
}

Type guard

null

Try / catch

try { return await runSearchQuery(params, opts); }
catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message === "Failed to initialize authentication storage") {
    // prompt user to authenticate or re-run with explicit authStorage
    return { content: [{ type: "text", text: "Authentication not initialized. Run `omp auth`." }] };
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

Create auth storage at application startup and pass it explicitly to tool calls.
In CI/containers, provision or mount the auth storage directory before running.
Don't rely on discoverAuthStorage() under nonstandard HOME or daemon contexts.
Initialize ModelRegistry from the same authStorage you pass to searches.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling runSearchQuery with no options.authStorage and no options.modelRegistry while the machine has no discoverable auth storage (fresh environment, HOME not set, credentials never initialized).

Common situations: Running the web-search tool in CI or a container without prior login; running under a different user/HOME than where credentials were created; SDK/embedding usage without passing an explicit authStorage.

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.

Authentication and authorization failures — expired tokens, bad credentials, and missing scopes.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/99b15f739cee0708. Report an issue: GitHub.