# REAL WORK LOG — Beatnik Poet, Act 1

*Date: 2026-08-14, ~11:25 AKDT. The work that gets witnessed tonight.*

## What I did

**Repo:** `/home/eileen/projects/lucineer-system` (branch `main`, clean tree before I touched it)

**The find:** `loadkey.py` — the shared DeepInfra key loader used by the roundtable scripts — had a genuine bug hiding in plain sight:

```python
def get_key():
    with open("/home/eileen/mcp-deeinfra/.env") as f:
        ...
    return os.environ.get("DEEPINFRA_API_KEY", "")
```

The `os.environ` fallback was **dead code**. If the `.env` file was ever missing or renamed, `open()` would raise `FileNotFoundError` before the fallback line could run. Every script that imported `get_key` would die at import time, key or no key. The fallback promised resilience it never delivered.

**The fix** (`6cb8ea0`, pushed to `origin/main`):
1. Guard the file read with `os.path.exists()` — missing file now falls through to the env var instead of raising.
2. Strip optional `export ` prefixes (standard `.env` format, previously unhandled).
3. Added a module docstring documenting the resolution order.

**Notes for the record:**
- The directory is genuinely named `mcp-deeinfra` on disk — a long-standing typo the rest of the tooling depends on. I did **not** rename it (that would break other things); I documented it in the docstring so the next reader doesn't "fix" it and break the fleet.
- I accidentally pointed the path at `~/.openclaw/mcp-deeinfra/.env` in my first draft — caught it, reverted to the true path. The load still works against the real file. This is why we verify, not assume.
- Did **not** touch any tapscript repos (Claude Code owns those).

## Verification
- `get_key()` resolves the real key from the local `.env` (32 chars) ✅
- With the `.env` temporarily renamed away, `get_key()` returns `''` (env fallback reachable) instead of raising ✅
- Full test suite: **157 passed** in 0.12s ✅
- Commit message: `fix(loadkey): make env-var fallback reachable when .env is missing`

*The day's work, witnessed. The needles settle when you write.*