[Bug] GovDoc2Poster: basemodel.py ignores DASHSCOPE_API_KEY environment variable and uses hardcoded placeholder instead

[SurbhiD404]

[Bug] GovDoc2Poster: basemodel.py ignores DASHSCOPE_API_KEY environment variable and uses hardcoded placeholder instead

Description

GovDoc2Poster loads environment variables via load_dotenv() and instructs users to configure DASHSCOPE_API_KEY, but the environment variable is never read.

In basemodel.py:

load_dotenv()

# Prefer API key from environment for security and flexibility
self.api_key = "your_api"

Additionally, the code logs the following warning:

if not self.api_key:
    self.logger.warning(
        "DASHSCOPE API key is not set. Set DASHSCOPE_API_KEY env var or update basemodel.py"
    )

However, a repository-wide search shows no usage of os.getenv() in the GovDoc2Poster example, meaning the environment variable is never read.

The hardcoded placeholder value is then propagated to downstream OpenAI-based components, including:

• NewGovernmentDocumentParser
• NewGovernmentPosterPlanner
• NewGovernmentPosterEvaluator

As a result, users who configure DASHSCOPE_API_KEY through environment variables cannot have it automatically picked up by the GovDoc2Poster pipeline.

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Steps to Reproduce

1. Set an environment variable:

$env:DASHSCOPE_API_KEY="test_key_123"

2. Verify it is available:

echo $env:DASHSCOPE_API_KEY

Output:

test_key_123

3. Search the GovDoc2Poster codebase:

git grep -n "os.getenv" examples/GovDoc2Poster

4. Observe that no results are returned and basemodel.py always assigns:

self.api_key = "your_api"

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Expected Behavior

When DASHSCOPE_API_KEY is configured, GovDoc2Poster should automatically read and use it.

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Actual Behavior

The environment variable is ignored and the placeholder value "your_api" is propagated to downstream components.

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Possible Fix

Read the API key from the environment and validate that a usable value is available:

self.api_key = kwargs.get(
    "api_key",
    os.getenv("DASHSCOPE_API_KEY", "")
)

if not self.api_key:
    raise ValueError(
        "API key not found. Set the DASHSCOPE_API_KEY "
        "environment variable or pass api_key as a parameter."
    )

This would make the implementation consistent with the existing warning message and the intended environment-variable-based configuration workflow.

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Suggested Label

kind/bug