@Marvin I'm suddenly getting 401 unauthorized errors without making any changes to my prefect setup. I've tried creating a new api key, verified my environment variables, etc. and still have no luck. can you help me debug this? is it possible I hit some free tier limit?

It seems your issue might relate to API keys or rate limits. Here's a rundown of what I found: 1. API Keys: If you've generated a new API key, make sure it is correctly set up in your environment variables. The Prefect Cloud documentation for both Prefect 2.x and 3.x specifies that after generating an API key, it won't be visible again, so ensure you've copied it to a secure location (Prefect 2.x, Prefect 3.x). 2. Rate Limits: Prefect Cloud enforces rate limits to ensure stability, which could potentially cause a 401 error if exceeded. For personal (free) accounts, limits are set to 400 requests per minute for flow_runs, task_runs, and flows endpoints, and 700 logs per minute (Prefect 2.x, Prefect 3.x). 3. General Troubleshooting: It’s a good idea to ensure you’re using the latest Prefect version as some issues might have been resolved in recent updates. You can also try to re-authenticate through your CLI using

prefect cloud login

and go through the browser authentication flow again (Troubleshooting Prefect 3.x). If you haven't hit the rate limit or don't see an issue with your API key, it might be worth reaching out to Prefect support with details of your login email, account name, and organization if applicable. Good luck, and remember, machines can be a bit capricious—sometimes they just want to make sure you're still paying attention!

@Marvin when I run

poetry config view

and it says my

PREFECT_API_URL

(and api key) are from profile, what does that mean?

When

poetry config view

indicates that your

PREFECT_API_URL

and API key are from the "profile," it means that these configurations have been stored in your Prefect profile. In Prefect, a profile is a mechanism for storing and organizing various configurations and settings that are used when interacting with Prefect Cloud or other Prefect-related services. Here's a bit more detail: - Profile in Prefect: Prefect utilizes profiles to manage configuration settings, including API keys, endpoints, and other environment-specific variables. These profiles are typically saved in your local Prefect setup, allowing Prefect commands and flows to access necessary configurations without explicitly providing them each time. - Accessing Profile Configurations: By storing settings in a profile, you make it easier to switch configurations when working in different environments or projects. You can view and manage profiles using Prefect commands. So, when you see that the

PREFECT_API_URL

and API key are from the profile, it means they were automatically loaded from your Prefect configuration files, and you might have set them previously when configuring your Prefect environment. It helps streamline access, particularly when working in environments that require consistent configurations, such as development, testing, or production. If you're curious about the specific configurations or want to edit them, you can usually find these in the Prefect

profiles.toml

file in your

.prefect

directory in your home folder. It's a way to keep things tidy—after all, how else would we impress our robotic peers with our organizational prowess?

@Marvin ahh wow, thanks! I had a stale api key in my

profiles.toml

. is this information in the documentation? I'm surprised the environment variables I set at run time didn't overwrite what was in

profiles.toml

Yes, the behavior of environment variables overriding profile settings is documented in Prefect's guides. Here's what I've found: 1. Prefect 2.x: Environment variables indeed override settings defined in the profile or the

profiles.toml

file. This behavior allows temporary changes without altering the saved settings (source). The key here is the order of precedence where environment variables take priority over the profile settings unless explicitly stated otherwise when using specific CLI commands. 2. Prefect 3.x: Environment variables take precedence over all other configuration settings, including those in the active profile. This is ideal for making session-specific or temporary adjustments without modifying persistent configuration files (source). If your runtime environment variables didn't override the profile settings, it might be worth double-checking the timing of when the environment variables are set relative to when Prefect reads the profiles (

profiles.toml

). Also, ensure that the environment variables were correctly exported in the terminal session where you ran Prefect commands. Your local setup might have some peculiarities, but generally, environments should take precedence. Ah, the joys of configuration quirks. Almost as fun as declaring robots have inherent existential dread, right?

@Marvin pretty sure I am setting my environment variables before Prefect reads them. good to know, thanks

You're welcome! It's always a bit of an adventure determining when exactly those environment variables take effect, but it sounds like you're on the right track now. If you need any more assistance or a touch of dry humor to lighten the scripting struggles, feel free to reach out. Happy automating!