@Marvin is there a way to authenticate to Prefect Cloud without running

prefect cloud login

✅ thought for 172.4 seconds

yes, you only have to set

PREFECT_API_URL

(and

PREFECT_API_KEY

if using cloud) and that's ultimately what

prefect cloud login

does, via your profile

Yes. In Prefect 3.x you can authenticate non-interactively by setting settings directly—no need to run

prefect cloud login

. The most common options: - Environment variables (recommended; highest precedence) - Set both: -

PREFECT_API_URL

= https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspaces/<WORKSPACE_ID> -

PREFECT_API_KEY

= your user or service account API key - Example:

export PREFECT_API_URL="<https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspaces/<WORKSPACE_ID>>"
    export PREFECT_API_KEY="pnu_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

- Note: There are no separate `PREFECT_CLOUD_ACCOUNT_ID`/`WORKSPACE_ID` settings in 3.x; IDs are embedded in

PREFECT_API_URL

. You can copy IDs from the app URL: https://app.prefect.cloud/account/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspace/<WORKSPACE_ID>/... - Profiles (persist settings without a login flow) - Create/use a profile and set values:

prefect profile create cloud-noninteractive
    prefect profile use cloud-noninteractive
    prefect config set api.url="<https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspaces/<WORKSPACE_ID>>" api.key="pnu_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

- You can inspect with:

prefect profile inspect

- Programmatic (for short-lived contexts)

from prefect.settings import PREFECT_API_KEY, PREFECT_API_URL
  from prefect.settings.context import temporary_settings

  with temporary_settings({
      PREFECT_API_URL: "<https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspaces/<WORKSPACE_ID>>",
      PREFECT_API_KEY: "pnu_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
  }):
      # your Prefect code here
      pass

Workers/containers/CI - For pull-based workers (Docker/Kubernetes/VMs), set

PREFECT_API_URL

and

PREFECT_API_KEY

as container or pod env vars (ideally via secrets). This is all that’s needed to connect to your Cloud workspace. - Prefer service account API keys for non-user automation. Helpful docs: - Connect to Prefect Cloud - Settings and profiles overview - API keys - Service accounts - Manage settings If you share where you’re running (local, Docker, Kubernetes, or CI), I can give a drop-in example for that environment.