vercel-labs/agent-skills · critical · Error

NOT_AUTH

NOT_AUTH

Error message

NOT_AUTH: run `vercel login`.

What it means

Thrown by checkAuth() when `runVercel(['whoami'])` rejects. `vercel whoami` exits non-zero when there is no authenticated session, so the rejection indicates the CLI is not logged in. The collector needs an authed session to run every scoped subcommand, so this is a hard gate placed right after the version check.

Source

Thrown at skills/vercel-optimize/lib/vercel.mjs:119

  const m = raw.match(/(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)/);
  if (!m) throw new Error(`VERCEL_VERSION_UNPARSEABLE: ${raw}`);
  const v = [Number(m[1]), Number(m[2]), Number(m[3])];
  for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
    if (v[i] > MIN_CLI_VERSION[i]) return v;
    if (v[i] < MIN_CLI_VERSION[i]) {
      throw new Error(
        `VERCEL_CLI_TOO_OLD: have ${v.join('.')}, need >= ${MIN_CLI_VERSION.join('.')}. Upgrade with \`npm i -g vercel@latest\`.`
      );
    }
  }
  return v;
}

export async function checkAuth() {
  try {
    await runVercel(['whoami']);
  } catch {
    throw new Error('NOT_AUTH: run `vercel login`.');
  }
}

export async function getCliIdentity() {
  const r = await runVercelJson(['whoami', '--format', 'json']);
  return r.ok ? r.data : null;
}

// Supports newer `.vercel/repo.json` (multi-project) + legacy `.vercel/project.json` (single-project).
export async function readProjectJson(cwd = process.cwd()) {
  try {
    const raw = await readFile(join(cwd, '.vercel', 'repo.json'), 'utf-8');
    const parsed = JSON.parse(raw);
    const projects = Array.isArray(parsed?.projects) ? parsed.projects.filter((p) => p?.id) : [];
    if (projects.length > 1) {
      throw new Error('AMBIGUOUS_PROJECT_LINK: `.vercel/repo.json` contains multiple projects. Run from the linked app directory, or pass the intended projectId together with VERCEL_ORG_ID.');
    }
    const first = projects[0];

View on GitHub (pinned to b8caa260a4)

Solutions

  1. Run `vercel login` interactively and re-run the script.
  2. For CI/headless, set VERCEL_TOKEN (or run `vercel login --token`) with a valid deployment token, then confirm `vercel whoami` succeeds.
  3. If the token was revoked, generate a new one in the Vercel dashboard and update the secret.

Example fix

# before
$ node scripts/collect-signals.mjs
-> NOT_AUTH: run `vercel login`.

# after
$ vercel login
$ vercel whoami   # sanity check, should print your username
$ node scripts/collect-signals.mjs
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import { execFileSync } from 'node:child_process';
function assertAuthed() {
  try { execFileSync('vercel', ['whoami'], { stdio: 'pipe' }); }
  catch { throw new Error('Not logged in. Run `vercel login` or set VERCEL_TOKEN.'); }
}
assertAuthed();

Try / catch

try {
  await checkAuth();
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message.startsWith('NOT_AUTH')) {
    // prompt login flow, then retry
    throw new Error('Run `vercel login`, then rerun this script.');
  }
  throw err;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running collect-signals on a machine/environment that never ran `vercel login`; a CI runner using token auth where VERCEL_TOKEN is unset or expired; a session that was revoked from the Vercel dashboard; `vercel logout` run earlier in the same shell.

Common situations: Fresh checkout in CI with no token injected; a shared machine where another user logged out; token expired; team SSO re-issued and the local token is stale.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of vercel-labs/agent-skills@b8caa260a4 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9a011a881260abb1. Report an issue: GitHub.