Stuck in Your First Hour: A Self-Service Triage Checklist Before You Ask Anyone

Why the first hour is where most setups stall

Most setup problems are not exotic. They come from a small set of repeatable mistakes: a key that got mangled during copy, a base URL pointing somewhere unexpected, a wallet that never funded the balance, or a model ID that is close but not exact.

This checklist walks through those four areas in order. In most cases one of them explains the failure, and you can fix it yourself faster than waiting on a reply.

Step 1: Confirm the API key is intact

API keys are opaque strings, and small copy errors are the most common cause of authentication failures.

• Copy from the source, not a rendered view. If you copied the key from a web page, chat message, or screenshot, invisible characters or truncated ends are likely.
• Check for truncation. Keys are often cut off at fixed widths in tables and logs. Compare the first and last characters against where you generated the key.
• Watch for stray whitespace. A trailing newline or space in an environment variable will be sent as part of the key.
• Verify the variable is actually loaded. In many runtimes an unset environment variable becomes the literal string undefined or empty, which produces an auth error that looks like a bad key.
• Do not paste keys into public tools. If a key may have leaked, rotate it rather than debugging around it.

If authentication keeps failing after these checks, generate a fresh key and test with that alone before changing anything else.

Step 2: Verify the base URL and endpoint path

Most clients let you set a base URL, and most failures here are one of three shapes.

• Missing or duplicated path segments. A base URL usually ends before the API version segment (for example, the part ending in your provider's version path). Supplying the full endpoint in the base URL can produce a doubled path.
• Mixing providers. Pointing an OpenAI-compatible client at a different provider's URL, or vice versa, usually yields a 404 or an unexpected format error rather than a clear message.
• Stale configuration. Check that an older base URL is not still set in a shell profile, .env file, or client config that overrides the one you think you are using.

A quick sanity check: send the simplest possible request with your current base URL and read the status code. A 404 usually means the path is wrong; a 401 means the key is the problem; a 400 often points to the request body or model field.

Step 3: Confirm the USDC balance is actually there

The aggregator model is prepaid: you top up with USDC on Base and spend from that balance. Access does not depend on a KYC flow, but it does depend on the funds arriving.

• Check the right chain. USDC exists on many networks. A transfer sent on a different chain will not appear in your balance here.
• Check the right address. Confirm the deposit address matches the one shown in your account, character for character.
• Allow for confirmation time. On-chain transfers need confirmations before they are credited. If you just sent funds, refresh after a short wait rather than resending.
• Distinguish a zero balance from a low balance. A balance that covers some requests but not others explains intermittent failures that look like rate limiting.

Remember the pricing model when reasoning about balance: you pay the official model price multiplied by 1.3, and key contributors are credited back the official price multiplied by 1.1 (or 1.2 for premium) in USDC. If you are a contributor, confirm credits have landed; a pending credit is not spendable balance yet.

Step 4: Match the model ID exactly

Model identifiers are strings, and near-misses fail the same way a wrong key does: with an error that may not name the field.

• Use the ID from the current model list. Vendor names, versions, and aliases change. A documented example from an old tutorial is a common source of typos.
• Mind separators and case. Hyphens versus underscores, and case differences, are meaningful in most APIs.
• Check provider prefixes. Aggregators often namespace models by vendor. A bare model name may need its provider prefix.
• Watch for trailing spaces in config-driven values. The same whitespace trap that breaks keys breaks model IDs.

If you are unsure which ID to use, start with a single known-good model to confirm the rest of your setup works, then swap in the ID you want.

Step 5: Isolate with a minimal request

When the four checks above pass and something still fails, reduce the surface area:

• Send the smallest possible request: one short message, minimal parameters.
• Remove client library options that alter behavior, such as retries, proxies, or streaming.
• Test from a plain HTTP client before blaming your application code.
• Log the exact URL, headers (redact the key), and body you are sending.

Most remaining failures become obvious once you can see the literal request rather than the abstraction your SDK builds.

When to escalate anyway

If you have verified the key, the base URL, the balance, and the model ID, and a minimal request still fails, you have already done the work that makes a support request useful. Include the failing status code, the endpoint, the model ID, and a redacted request. That turns a round-trip conversation into a single fix.