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Missing environment variable: `OPENAI_API_KEY` - Codex

Quick fix

Delete the env_key entry from config.toml, or set OPENAI_API_KEY in Windows environment variables, and confirm the provider supports the native response format.

Symptom

Section titled “Symptom”
Error output
Missing environment variable: `OPENAI_API_KEY`.

Cause

Section titled “Cause”

On Windows, the config cc-switch generates for Codex may not be read correctly. An `env_key` entry in `config.toml` makes environment variable injection fail. On top of that, Codex currently only natively supports the OpenAI `response` format API, so an incompatible provider endpoint format (Azure, for example) also leaves the config ineffective.

Fix

Section titled “Fix”

  1. Open the Codex `config.toml`, find and delete the `env_key` entry, save, and restart Codex.

    config.toml
    env_key = "OPENAI_API_KEY"

  2. If it still does not apply after deleting it, set the environment variable in Windows by hand. Open a command line, replace `YOUR_API_KEY` with your API key, and run: `setx OPENAI_API_KEY "YOUR_API_KEY"`.

  3. Confirm your provider endpoint natively supports the `response` format. If it does not, the current version cannot use it directly — wait for a later cc-switch version to add local proxy format conversion.

Affected Versions

Section titled “Affected Versions”
ToolCodex
Versionv0.84.0
PlatformsWindows

Source Issues

Section titled “Source Issues”

This page is distilled from 3 real issues

FAQ

Section titled “FAQ”
I configured the provider details and it still errors. Is that the provider?
Not necessarily. Users confirm this comes from the config not being applied correctly, and deleting `env_key` from `config.toml` usually resolves it.
Why does connecting Azure to Codex through cc-switch not work?
Codex currently only recognises the native `response` format API. Azure and similar endpoint formats may be incompatible; cc-switch plans a local proxy feature in a later version to convert the format.
Section titled “Related problems”
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN and ANTHROPIC_API_KEYRun `claude daemon stop --any` to kill leftover Claude background processes, then keep only one auth variable in `env` in `~/.claude/settings.json`.12 issues mergedANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN and ANTHROPIC_API_KEYOpen `~/.claude/settings.json`, delete the duplicate auth variable so only the one your provider needs remains, save, and restart Claude Code.4 issues mergedAuth conflictLog out of the official Claude login, clear conflicting ANTHROPIC_* variables, set hasCompletedOnboarding to true in ~/.claude.json, and restart the terminal.6 issues merged

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