clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB · error

Environment read failed with HTTP

Error message

Environment read failed with HTTP {}

What it means

Thrown by `fetch` in crates/cli/src/subcommands/env.rs when the HTTP request used to read a SpacetimeDB environment's variables (`spacetime env get`/`env list`) returns a non-success status. The message is templated with `ensure!` and the actual `response.status()`. It indicates the server rejected the environment-read SQL query before any data was returned.

Solutions

1. Re-run `spacetime login` to refresh your auth token, then retry the command.
2. Verify the database name / server URL passed to the command is correct.
3. Check the printed HTTP status: 401/403 means credentials, 404 means wrong target, 5xx means server-side issue.
4. Confirm the server is reachable and healthy (`curl` the /health endpoint).

Example fix

// before
spacetime env get MY_KEY --database typo-db
// error: Environment read failed with HTTP 404
// after
spacetime env get MY_KEY --database my-db   # existing database, valid login

match spacetime_env_list() {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("Environment read failed with HTTP") => {
        // inspect status, re-login / fix target, then retry once
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
    Ok(out) => println!("{out}"),
}

When it happens

Trigger: The CLI sends a SQL query over the HTTP API via `.timeout(30s).body(query.sql()?).send().await?` and `response.status().is_success()` is false — e.g. 401/403 for bad credentials, 404 for a wrong database/identity, 400 for a malformed request.

Common situations: Running `spacetime env list` or `spacetime env get KEY` against a server you are not authenticated to, with an expired token, or pointing at a database name that does not exist; server outage returning 5xx.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API error: {status}" and "HTTP 401/403/404/429/5xx" errors: non-2xx HTTP responses explained — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot read environment schema: HTTP
• Environment key count exceeds limit
• Environment key is absent
• Environment read response exceeds limit
• Environment read value exceeds limit

AI-assisted analysis of clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB@eddf9f5014 (2026-09-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/183d72a3b3ea0abc. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/cli/src/subcommands/env.rs:100

        "spacetime env get/list <database>",
    )?;
    let con = sql::parse_req(config, args, &database.database, database.server.as_deref()).await?;
    let mut request = ClientApi::new(con).sql();
    if let Some(confirmed) = args.get_one::<bool>("confirmed") {
        request = request.query(&[("confirmed", confirmed)]);
    }
    print!("{}", fetch(request, query).await?);
    Ok(())
}

async fn fetch(request: reqwest::RequestBuilder, query: Query) -> anyhow::Result<String> {
    use futures::StreamExt;
    let response = request
        .timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(30))
        .body(query.sql()?)
        .send()
        .await?;
    ensure!(
        response.status().is_success(),
        "Environment read failed with HTTP {}",
        response.status()
    );
    let mut body = Vec::new();
    let limit = MAX_ENV_VARS * (MAX_ENV_KEY_BYTES + MAX_ENV_VALUE_BYTES) * 6 + 64 * 1024;
    let mut stream = response.bytes_stream();
    while let Some(chunk) = stream.next().await {
        let chunk = chunk?;
        ensure!(
            body.len().saturating_add(chunk.len()) <= limit,
            "Environment read response exceeds limit"
        );
        body.extend_from_slice(&chunk);
    }
    render(&body, &query)
}

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