openai_api_key in docker image gives error as "openai.AuthenticationError: Error code: 401 - 'invalid_api_key'

Question

I have a simple test code to test the OPENAI_API_KEY locally and in docker image.

The application runs fine locally but for docker image run, it gives error as:

"openai.AuthenticationError: Error code: 401 - {'error': {'message': 'Incorrect API key provided: "sk-proj****"

Here is the testcode.py

from openai import Client
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os

load_dotenv()
OPENAI_API_KEY = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")

print(f"Key is : {OPENAI_API_KEY}")

openai_client = Client()

response = openai_client.chat.completions.create(
  model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
  messages=[
        {"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant."},
        {"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}
    ]
)

Here is the Dockerfile

FROM python:3.11-slim

WORKDIR /app

COPY . /app

RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

EXPOSE 8000

CMD ["python", "testcode.py"]

The .env file in my project

OPENAI_API_KEY="<my_key>"

This is the run command I use to run the docker image:

docker run --env-file .env -it  -p 8000:8000 testapp_1:v1

If I run this app locally:

It prints the key value and also gives the response from the llm object.

But if I run the docker image, it prints the api key correctly, but throws an Authentication Error.

On OpenAI site I checked the access permission for the api key. It is set to "all"

What can be the issue when I use the API key from my docker image?

Thanks in adavance!

Answer 1

The issue was that double quotes were used to specify OPEANAI_API_KEY in the .env file. If the key is written in double quotes, e.g.

OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-proj-...................."

it works in the desktop app, but it results in an INVALID_API_KEY error in a docker image.

I removed the double quotes from the .env file and specified the key as follows:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-....................

Now it works both in desktop application as well as in docker image.

Thank you!