Troubleshooting

April 26, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Common Issues

"OPENROUTER_API_KEY environment variable not set"

macOS/Linux:

# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Then reload
source ~/.zshrc

Windows PowerShell:

# Set permanently
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("OPENROUTER_API_KEY", "your-key", "User")

# Restart terminal

Windows Command Prompt:

setx OPENROUTER_API_KEY "your-key-here"
:: Restart terminal

"requests module not found"

pip install requests

Or if you have multiple Python versions:

python3 -m pip install requests

Skill not appearing in Claude Code

  1. Verify the skill is in the correct location:

    • macOS/Linux: ~/.claude/skills/h3/
    • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\h3\

  2. Check the SKILL.md file exists and has valid YAML frontmatter

  3. Restart Claude Code

"Permission denied" when running script (macOS/Linux)

chmod +x ~/.claude/skills/h3/scripts/review.py
chmod +x ~/.claude/skills/h3/scripts/list-free-models.py

API request timeout

The default timeout is 120 seconds. For very large reviews, the model may need more time. This is a limitation of reasoning models.

Try:

  1. Reduce the amount of code being reviewed
  2. Use a faster model (e.g., deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash)
  3. Set "reasoning": "medium" or "none" in config.json

Invalid API key error

  1. Verify your key at https://openrouter.ai/keys
  2. Check for extra spaces or quotes in the environment variable
  3. Ensure you have credits in your OpenRouter account

Free model not working

Free models rotate on OpenRouter. The model in your config may no longer be available.

  1. Run the list utility to see current free models:

    python ~/.claude/skills/h3/scripts/list-free-models.py

  2. Update free_model in your config.json with a current free model

  3. Check OpenRouter status: https://openrouter.ai/models