Environment & Auth

Configuration & Authentication

Moltext is designed to be flexible, supporting everything from zero-auth local parsing to high-density LLM compilation via cloud providers. Authentication requirements depend entirely on your chosen Processing Mode.

Authentication Modes

The compiler operates in three distinct authentication states based on your CLI flags:

| Mode | Flag | Auth Required | Description | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Raw Mode | --raw | None | Bypasses LLM processing. Returns structured Markdown using only local parsing. | | Local Inference | --base-url <url> | Optional | Used for local providers like Ollama or LM Studio. Defaults to a dummy key if none is provided. | | OpenAI (Default) | (None) | Required | Uses OpenAI’s API to normalize and compress documentation into agent-native context. |

Environment Variables

Moltext supports .env files in your current working directory via dotenv. This is the recommended way to manage keys for automated workflows.

| Variable | Description | | :--- | :--- | | OPENAI_API_KEY | Your OpenAI API key. Required for cloud-based compilation unless --raw is used. |

Usage & Examples

1. Using OpenAI (Standard)

To use the default gpt-4o-mini model for high-density compilation, you must provide an API key.

Via Environment Variable:

export OPENAI_API_KEY='sk-...'
moltext https://docs.example.com

Via CLI Flag:

moltext https://docs.example.com --key sk-...

2. Local Inference (Ollama / LM Studio)

When targeting a local inference server, Moltext skips the strict OpenAI key requirement. If no key is provided via -k, the system automatically uses a dummy-key to satisfy the underlying API client.

# Example: Using Ollama
moltext https://docs.example.com \
  --base-url http://localhost:11434/v1 \
  --model llama3

3. Raw Mode (Zero-Auth)

If you do not want to use an LLM or do not have an API key available, use the --raw flag. This mode performs structural cleaning and HTML-to-Markdown conversion entirely on your local machine.

moltext https://docs.example.com --raw

Troubleshooting Auth Issues

• Missing Key Error: If you attempt to run Moltext without --raw or a custom --base-url, the tool will check for the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable. If it is missing, the process will exit with a ❌ Error: API Key is required for OpenAI message.
• Base URL Overrides: Ensure your --base-url includes the version suffix (e.g., /v1) if your local provider requires it to remain compatible with the OpenAI SDK structure.