ory/kratos · error

could not parse the endpoint URL

Error message

could not parse the endpoint URL "%s"

What it means

An endpoint string was supplied (flag or environment variable), but Go's url.Parse rejected it as malformed. The raw parse error is wrapped, so the underlying cause is a syntax problem in the URL itself, not a missing value.

Solutions

1. Check the endpoint for typos: missing scheme (http:// or https://), stray whitespace, or invalid characters
2. Ensure the URL has a valid host, e.g. https://kratos.example.com rather than kratos.example.com
3. Quote the value in the shell to prevent glob or space issues

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/cliclient/client.go:69 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of ory/kratos@b86338da04 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ea5e33d5712b4780. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at cmd/cliclient/client.go:69

		return nil, errors.Errorf("ClientContextKey was expected to be *client.OryKratos but it contained an invalid type %T ", f)
	}

	endpoint, err := cmd.Flags().GetString(FlagEndpoint)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.WithStack(err)
	}

	if endpoint == "" {
		endpoint = os.Getenv(envKeyEndpoint)
	}

	if endpoint == "" {
		return nil, errors.Errorf("you have to set the remote endpoint, try --help for details")
	}

	u, err := url.Parse(endpoint)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrapf(err, `could not parse the endpoint URL "%s"`, endpoint)
	}

	conf := kratos.NewConfiguration()
	conf.HTTPClient = httpx.NewResilientClient(
		httpx.ResilientClientWithConnectionTimeout(10 * time.Second),
	).StandardClient()
	conf.Servers = kratos.ServerConfigurations{{URL: u.String()}}
	return kratos.NewAPIClient(conf), nil
}

func RegisterClientFlags(flags *pflag.FlagSet) {
	flags.StringP(FlagEndpoint, FlagEndpoint[:1], "", fmt.Sprintf("The URL of Ory Kratos' Admin API. Alternatively set using the %s environmental variable.", envKeyEndpoint))
}

View on GitHub (pinned to b86338da04)