openai/openai-python · error · ValueError

Expected a non-empty value for `container_id` but received {

Error message

Expected a non-empty value for `container_id` but received {container_id!r}

What it means

Containers.retrieve (sync) requires a truthy container_id for GET /containers/{container_id}. Client-side validation of required path parameters; ValueError is raised for None/empty values without any HTTP request.

Source

Thrown at src/openai/resources/containers/containers.py:145

        extra_headers: Headers | None = None,
        extra_query: Query | None = None,
        extra_body: Body | None = None,
        timeout: float | httpx2.Timeout | None | NotGiven = not_given,
    ) -> ContainerRetrieveResponse:
        """
        Retrieve Container

        Args:
          extra_headers: Send extra headers

          extra_query: Add additional query parameters to the request

          extra_body: Add additional JSON properties to the request

          timeout: Override the client-level default timeout for this request, in seconds
        """
        if not container_id:
            raise ValueError(f"Expected a non-empty value for `container_id` but received {container_id!r}")
        return self._get(
            path_template("/containers/{container_id}", container_id=container_id),
            options=make_request_options(
                extra_headers=extra_headers,
                extra_query=extra_query,
                extra_body=extra_body,
                timeout=timeout,
                security={"bearer_auth": True},
            ),
            cast_to=ContainerRetrieveResponse,
        )

    def list(
        self,
        *,
        after: str | Omit = omit,
        limit: int | Omit = omit,
        name: str | Omit = omit,

View on GitHub (pinned to 9917c6e28e)

Solutions

  1. Capture the id from `container = client.containers.create(...)` and pass `container.id`.
  2. Validate env/DB-sourced ids are non-empty strings before use.
  3. Check the keyword argument spelling.

Example fix

# before
client.containers.retrieve(container_id=os.getenv("CONTAINER_ID"))
# after
cid = os.getenv("CONTAINER_ID")
if not cid:
    raise RuntimeError("CONTAINER_ID not set")
client.containers.retrieve(container_id=cid)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if not container_id:
    raise ValueError("container_id must be non-empty")
client.containers.retrieve(container_id)

Type guard

def is_valid_id(value: object) -> bool:
    return isinstance(value, str) and bool(value.strip())

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: `client.containers.retrieve("")` or passing a None container id from a create response that wasn't captured or a config lookup miss.

Common situations: Using the Codex/containers API with ids stored in env or DB where the field is absent; passing the container object instead of `.id`.

Understand the failure class

Background: Missing required parameter errors: what 'X is required' and 'the required X param is missing' mean, and how to fix them — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of openai/openai-python@9917c6e28e (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7aee4fe327794b37. Report an issue: GitHub.