openai/openai-python · error · ValueError

Expected a non-empty value for `project_id` but received {pr

Error message

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

What it means

The sync Certificates `list` method validates `project_id` before building `/organization/projects/{project_id}/certificates`. An empty or None project id would produce a malformed path, so the SDK raises this ValueError locally without contacting the server.

Source

Thrown at src/openai/resources/admin/organization/projects/certificates.py:87

              ending with obj_foo, your subsequent call can include after=obj_foo in order to
              fetch the next page of the list.

          limit: A limit on the number of objects to be returned. Limit can range between 1 and
              100, and the default is 20.

          order: Sort order by the `created_at` timestamp of the objects. `asc` for ascending
              order and `desc` for descending order.

          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 project_id:
            raise ValueError(f"Expected a non-empty value for `project_id` but received {project_id!r}")
        return self._get_api_list(
            path_template("/organization/projects/{project_id}/certificates", project_id=project_id),
            page=SyncConversationCursorPage[CertificateListResponse],
            options=make_request_options(
                extra_headers=extra_headers,
                extra_query=extra_query,
                extra_body=extra_body,
                timeout=timeout,
                query=maybe_transform(
                    {
                        "after": after,
                        "limit": limit,
                        "order": order,
                    },
                    certificate_list_params.CertificateListParams,
                ),
                security={"admin_api_key_auth": True},
            ),

View on GitHub (pinned to 9917c6e28e)

Solutions

  1. Provide the real project id (e.g. 'proj_abc123')
  2. Load and validate configuration at application startup
  3. Fail fast with a descriptive error when config values are missing

Example fix

# before
certs = client.admin.organization.projects.certificates.list(project_id="")

# after
certs = client.admin.organization.projects.certificates.list(project_id="proj_abc123")
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

assert isinstance(project_id, str) and project_id.strip(), "project_id required"
certs = client.admin.organization.projects.certificates.list(project_id=project_id)

Type guard

def is_valid_project_id(v: str | None) -> bool:
    return isinstance(v, str) and bool(v.strip())

Try / catch

try:
    certs = client.admin.organization.projects.certificates.list(project_id=pid)
except ValueError as e:
    logger.error("bad project_id: %s", e)
    return []

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `client.admin.organization.projects.certificates.list(project_id=...)` with '', None, or whitespace; config/env-driven project id missing at runtime.

Common situations: Env var unset in the deployed environment; empty project field in a config store; placeholder from example code left in place.

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/205cd2ca0e45ed2d. Report an issue: GitHub.