grafana/k6 · error

token is required to create cloud API client

Error message

token is required to create cloud API client

What it means

cloudapiv6.NewClient refuses to construct a client when the token argument is an empty string — there is no anonymous access to the k6 Cloud v6 API. This is a fail-fast guard at client construction (client.go:31), before any request is made, so hitting it means the caller resolved configuration without a token.

Solutions

1. Set the token: `k6 cloud login` (interactive) or export K6_CLOUD_TOKEN, then construct the client
2. If calling NewClient directly, resolve the token via the same consolidated config the CLI uses and error out to the user when missing
3. In CI, assert the secret is non-empty before invoking k6 (e.g. `test -n "$K6_CLOUD_TOKEN"`)

Example fix

// before
client, err := cloudapiv6.NewClient(logger, os.Getenv("K6_CLOUD_TOKEN"), host, version, timeout)

// after
token := os.Getenv("K6_CLOUD_TOKEN")
if token == "" {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("set K6_CLOUD_TOKEN or run `k6 cloud login`")
}
client, err := cloudapiv6.NewClient(logger, token, host, version, timeout)

token := strings.TrimSpace(cfg.Token.String)
if token == "" {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("K6_CLOUD_TOKEN not set; run `k6 cloud login`")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling NewClient with "" because the token was never read from flags/env/disk config, a K6_CLOUD_TOKEN env var set to empty, or a config loader silently dropping the token field. The cmd layer normally prevents this via checkCloudLogin, so direct API users hit it most.

Common situations: Extensions (xk6) or scripts embedding the cloudapiv6 client without running login first, CI jobs that mask the token to an empty string, or home-dir config files (~/.) removed between login and run.

Related errors

• : .\n
• create or find load test
• invalid stack URL
• notify test run completed
• starting test

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@8d06114777 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fb94c163dad22762. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/cloudapi/v6/client.go:32

	"go.k6.io/k6/v2/errext"
	"go.k6.io/k6/v2/internal/cloudapi/clientcfg"
	"go.k6.io/k6/v2/internal/cloudapi/httperr"
)

// Client handles communication with the k6 Cloud API.
type Client struct {
	apiClient *k6cloud.APIClient
	token     string
	stackID   int32
	baseURL   string

	logger logrus.FieldLogger
}

// NewClient return a new client for the cloud API
func NewClient(logger logrus.FieldLogger, token, host, version string, timeout time.Duration) (*Client, error) {
	if token == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("token is required to create cloud API client")
	}

	cfg := clientcfg.New(host, version, "Global k6 Cloud API.", timeout)

	c := &Client{
		apiClient: k6cloud.NewAPIClient(cfg),
		token:     token,
		baseURL:   fmt.Sprintf("%s/cloud/v6", host),
		logger:    logger,
	}
	return c, nil
}

// SetStackID sets the stack ID for the client. It returns an error if
// stackID does not fit in the int32 range the underlying SDK requires for
// the X-Stack-Id header.
func (c *Client) SetStackID(stackID int64) error {
	if stackID < math.MinInt32 || stackID > math.MaxInt32 {

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