env variable not found in windows terminal

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Apr 28, 2025 by sjanaX01 Closed Apr 29, 2025
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (tibo-openai, collaborator) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex is running?

0.1.2504251709

Which model were you using?

gemini-2.0-flash

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64

What steps can reproduce the bug?

I am installing Codex using the npm library, and I want to set up the environment variable for the API key.
In my PowerShell, I run the following command:

setx GEMINI_API_KEY "your_api_key"

This saves the API key in the Windows global environment variables.
I can verify that it was saved correctly by running:

node -e "console.log(process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY)"

This successfully prints my API key.

When I run codex in the terminal, I still get the following error:
` Missing Gemini API key.

Set the environment variable GEMINI_API_KEY and re-run this command.
You can create a GEMINI_API_KEY in the Google AI Studio.
`
Even though the environment variable is set, the error persists.

I also tried setting the environment variable for the current session using:
$env:GEMINI_API_KEY = "your_api_key"

But the problem remains — Codex still does not recognize the API key.

Additionally, I modified the .codex config file located at:
C:\Users\<username>\.codex

In the config file, I manually added the envKey under the Gemini section with my API key.
However, even after these changes, I am still facing the same issue.

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

What do you see instead?

!Image

Additional information

In windows os how the program see the env variable data. And as I know that when I save the env file in windwos it save on the enviromant variable that you can see by searching the Edit Enviroment Variable and then you see a popup like this

!Image

and then in the inside the enviroment variable you have the data. Am I right?

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

Eg-M · 1 year ago

Requirements:
Operating systems macOS 12+, Ubuntu 20.04+/Debian 10+, or Windows 11 via WSL2

sjanaX01 · 1 year ago

@Eg-M but in I run this on my powershell. But after restart my pc it's not wroking

tibo-openai collaborator · 1 year ago

Going to close this because the project currently doesn't support windows without using WSL2, please use WSL2.

sjanaX01 · 1 year ago

@tibo-openai I am facing some wired problem in codex I am in windows machine and I am setting the GEMINI_API_KEY in my enviroment variable and I am so modify the config file in the .codex file in my user root directory. Now codex is install by npm package manager in globally when I install this globally then it not working then it says that missing api key but after uninstalling the codex library from global that is present in Roaming/npm it run perfectly I share a video see this

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a3d74461-3654-4f56-85ea-bcf1401092da

If you tell the package is hidden then is tell you I allready enable hidden file. Now tell me even the package is not install then how this is working?