openai/openai-python · error · ValueError

Expected a non-empty value for `user_id` but received {user_

Error message

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

What it means

The Admin organization users retrieve method builds GET /organization/users/{user_id} and the generated guard rejects empty or None user_id with an immediate ValueError, before any HTTP traffic.

Source

Thrown at src/openai/resources/admin/organization/users/users.py:80

        extra_headers: Headers | None = None,
        extra_query: Query | None = None,
        extra_body: Body | None = None,
        timeout: float | httpx2.Timeout | None | NotGiven = not_given,
    ) -> OrganizationUser:
        """
        Retrieves a user by their identifier.

        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 user_id:
            raise ValueError(f"Expected a non-empty value for `user_id` but received {user_id!r}")
        return self._get(
            path_template("/organization/users/{user_id}", user_id=user_id),
            options=make_request_options(
                extra_headers=extra_headers,
                extra_query=extra_query,
                extra_body=extra_body,
                timeout=timeout,
                security={"admin_api_key_auth": True},
            ),
            cast_to=OrganizationUser,
        )

    def update(
        self,
        user_id: str,
        *,
        developer_persona: Optional[str] | Omit = omit,
        role: Optional[str] | Omit = omit,

View on GitHub (pinned to 9917c6e28e)

Solutions

  1. Pass a real user id from users.list() output
  2. Validate the variable before calling retrieve
  3. Log repr(user_id) upstream to catch blanks early

Example fix

# before
user = client.admin.organization.users.retrieve(os.environ.get('USER_ID'))
# after
user_id = os.environ['USER_ID']
user = client.admin.organization.users.retrieve(user_id)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if not user_id:
    raise ValueError('user_id is required')
user = client.admin.organization.users.retrieve(user_id)

Type guard

def valid_user_id(uid: object) -> bool:
    return isinstance(uid, str) and uid.startswith('user-')

Try / catch

try:
    user = client.admin.organization.users.retrieve(user_id)
except ValueError:
    logger.exception('user_id was empty')
    raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: client.admin.organization.users.retrieve('') or retrieve(None); user id from an unset env var or empty webhook payload field.

Common situations: Looking up users in provisioning scripts where the identifier column is blank or the invite payload lacked the id.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of openai/openai-python@9917c6e28e (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7e3d19268183130f. Report an issue: GitHub.