I get a ReferenceError during an async GET request to a Rapid API endpoint. Check the snippet below:
const API_TOKEN = process.env.MY_API_KEY;
const CHECK_URL = "https://geo-service.example.com/location";
async function fetchLocation(url) {
const response = await fetch(url, {
method: 'GET',
headers: { 'Accept': 'application/json', 'X-API-Token': API_TOKEN }
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error('Status: ' + response.status);
return response.json();
}
async function runQuery() {
const result = await fetchLocation(CHECK_URL);
console.log(result);
}
runQuery();
I went through a similar issue when working with asynchronous API calls in Node.js. The problem in my case was that the environment variable wasn’t being loaded, which eventually led to the ReferenceError. It turned out that I hadn’t properly configured the dotenv module when starting the app, leaving my API token undefined. In my experience, added logging at startup helped me confirm the environment variables were set correctly, and verifying token names prevented typographical errors. Error handling should also be expanded so that such issues are caught early on.
hey, i ran into this too. make sure dotenv.config() is run before any calls that use process.env. sometimes even a small typo in your variable name makes the token undefinied. check that in your startup sequence and you should be set.
I have experienced a similar issue in a project where the asynchronous fetch would fail because the environment variables were not loaded at the time of the call. In my case, it turned out that the initialization of the environment configuration happened too late in the process. This led to a situation where the API token was undefined, which triggered the ReferenceError. To resolve this, I ensured that the configuration script executed at the very beginning of the application startup. Additionally, including a simple check for the token before making the request helped avoid this error.
I encountered a similar problem where a ReferenceError arose due to the placement of the environment variable definition. In my case, the error was caused by failing to ensure that the module importing process.env configurations was invoked before the API call functions were used. Additionally, I found that including a guard clause to verify the existence of the token can preemptively catch such issues. This approach allowed me to distinguish between a scope-related error and a genuinely undefined token, which saved significant debugging time, especially when working with asynchronous functions.