chroma-core/chroma · error · ValueError

The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.

Error message

The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.

What it means

RoboflowEmbeddingFunction.__init__ resolves its API key as api_key or os.getenv(api_key_env_var) and raises this ValueError when neither yields a value. The default variable is ROBOFLOW_API_KEY, and if ROBOFLOW_API_KEY is set it always wins as the chosen env var name; otherwise the api_key_env_var parameter applies. The check runs before the Pillow/httpx imports, so it is the first failure you see when the key is missing.

Source

Thrown at chromadb/utils/embedding_functions/roboflow_embedding_function.py:55

                Defaults to "CHROMA_ROBOFLOW_API_KEY".
            api_url (str, optional): The URL of the Roboflow API.
                Defaults to "https://infer.roboflow.com".
        """

        if api_key is not None:
            warnings.warn(
                "Direct api_key configuration will not be persisted. "
                "Please use environment variables via api_key_env_var for persistent storage.",
                DeprecationWarning,
            )
        if os.getenv("ROBOFLOW_API_KEY") is not None:
            self.api_key_env_var = "ROBOFLOW_API_KEY"
        else:
            self.api_key_env_var = api_key_env_var

        self.api_key = api_key or os.getenv(self.api_key_env_var)
        if not self.api_key:
            raise ValueError(
                f"The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set."
            )

        self.api_url = api_url

        try:
            self._PILImage = importlib.import_module("PIL.Image")
        except ImportError:
            raise ValueError(
                "The PIL python package is not installed. Please install it with `pip install pillow`"
            )

        self._httpx = importlib.import_module("httpx")

    def __call__(self, input: Embeddable) -> Embeddings:
        """
        Generate embeddings for the given documents or images.

View on GitHub (pinned to aecdd12c8a)

Solutions

1. Create an API key in Roboflow (Settings -> API Key) and export ROBOFLOW_API_KEY=... in the runtime environment, then restart the process.
2. Use a custom name if your platform already standardizes one: RoboflowEmbeddingFunction(api_key_env_var="ROBOFLOW_KEY").
3. Pass api_key directly for local experiments (note the DeprecationWarning; prefer env vars for anything persisted).
4. In Docker/K8s/CI, inject the variable via secrets (environment: in compose, Secret/env in K8s, masked variable in CI).

Example fix

// before
ref = RoboflowEmbeddingFunction()  # ValueError: The ROBOFLOW_API_KEY environment variable is not set.

# after
import os
assert os.getenv("ROBOFLOW_API_KEY"), "Set ROBOFLOW_API_KEY from Roboflow Settings -> API Key"
ref = RoboflowEmbeddingFunction(api_key_env_var="ROBOFLOW_API_KEY")

import os

if not os.getenv("ROBOFLOW_API_KEY"):
    raise RuntimeError(
        "ROBOFLOW_API_KEY is not set — create one at Roboflow Settings -> API Key and export it"
    )

ref = RoboflowEmbeddingFunction()

def has_roboflow_key() -> bool:
    return bool(os.getenv("ROBOFLOW_API_KEY"))

try:
    ref = RoboflowEmbeddingFunction()
except ValueError as e:
    if "environment variable is not set" in str(e):
        raise RuntimeError("Missing Roboflow credentials — set ROBOFLOW_API_KEY") from e
    raise

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing RoboflowEmbeddingFunction() without api_key in an environment where ROBOFLOW_API_KEY is unset; or api_key_env_var="ROBOFLOW_KEY" with that custom variable not exported. Common when embedding images right after `pip install chromadb` without any Roboflow setup.

Common situations: The key exists in the Roboflow web UI but was never exported to the shell/container; a private Roboflow workflow key is confused with the personal API key; multi-service deployments where the inference service has the key but the indexing worker does not; CI secrets not wired to the job.

Related errors

• The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.
• The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.
• The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.
• The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable is not set.
• The {self.api_key_env_var} environment variable must be set

AI-assisted analysis of chroma-core/chroma@aecdd12c8a (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/790591c3e7da27a2. Report an issue: GitHub.