paperclipai/paperclip · error

Invalid exe.dev environment variable key: ${key}

Error message

Invalid exe.dev environment variable key: ${key}

What it means

Env-key sanitization in buildLoginShellScript for the exe.dev driver: an environment variable key failed isValidShellEnvKey, i.e. it is not a valid shell identifier safe to emit in the generated script. Rejecting bad keys here prevents shell metacharacter injection through env var names before the SSH command is built.

Source

Thrown at packages/plugins/sandbox-providers/exe-dev/src/plugin.ts:532

  return {
    sshIdentityFile,
    cleanup: async () => {
      await rm(tempDir, { recursive: true, force: true });
    },
  };
}

function buildLoginShellScript(input: {
  command: string;
  args: string[];
  cwd?: string;
  env?: Record<string, string>;
}): string {
  const env = input.env ?? {};
  for (const key of Object.keys(env)) {
    if (!isValidShellEnvKey(key)) {
      throw new Error(`Invalid exe.dev environment variable key: ${key}`);
    }
  }
  const envArgs = Object.entries(env)
    .filter((entry): entry is [string, string] => typeof entry[1] === "string")
    .map(([key, value]) => `${key}=${shellQuote(value)}`);
  const commandParts = [shellQuote(input.command), ...input.args.map(shellQuote)].join(" ");
  const finalLine = envArgs.length > 0
    ? `exec env ${envArgs.join(" ")} ${commandParts}`
    : `exec ${commandParts}`;
  // Source the common login profiles before exec so the command runs with the
  // interactive-shell PATH. The wrapper sources no `nvm.sh`; the sandbox image
  // supplies node on the PATH.
  const lines = [
    'if [ -f /etc/profile ]; then . /etc/profile >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; fi',
    'if [ -f "$HOME/.profile" ]; then . "$HOME/.profile" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; fi',
    'if [ -f "$HOME/.bash_profile" ]; then . "$HOME/.bash_profile" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; elif [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then . "$HOME/.bashrc" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; fi',
    'if [ -f "$HOME/.zprofile" ]; then . "$HOME/.zprofile" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; fi',
  ];

View on GitHub (pinned to a7e689b3c3)

Solutions

1. Use a valid environment variable key (letters, digits, underscore, not starting with a digit).

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/plugins/sandbox-providers/exe-dev/src/plugin.ts:530 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of paperclipai/paperclip@a7e689b3c3 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b2c077a53ac3bd35. Report an issue: GitHub.