[Detail Bug] ReadEnvFile does not trim key/value around '=', causing .env lookups to fail

[detail-app]

Detail Bug Report

https://app.detail.dev/org_42bf1b6f-11b3-499a-ad6d-d5a056862990/bugs/bug_2f4d6e34-53a0-4abc-bfb9-2c4950ea63c5

Summary

• Context: The ReadEnvFile function in pkg/environment/env_files.go parses environment variable files (.env files) that are used to configure API keys, credentials, and other environment variables for the agent.
• Bug: Keys and values are not trimmed after splitting on the = delimiter, causing whitespace around the equals sign to be preserved in the parsed key-value pairs.
• Actual vs. expected: When parsing KEY = VALUE, the result is a key with trailing whitespace ("KEY ") and a value with leading whitespace (" VALUE"), but the expected behavior per Docker Compose specification is that "spaces before and after value are ignored" and both key and value should be "KEY" and "VALUE".
• Impact: Environment variables with whitespace around the equals sign will not be found when the code looks them up, causing authentication failures for API keys and missing configuration values.

Code with bug

func ReadEnvFile(absolutePath string) ([]KeyValuePair, error) {
	buf, err := os.ReadFile(absolutePath)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	var lines []KeyValuePair

	for line := range strings.SplitSeq(string(buf), "\n") {
		line = strings.TrimSpace(line)
		if line == "" || strings.HasPrefix(line, "#") {
			continue
		}

		k, v, ok := strings.Cut(line, "=")  // <-- BUG 🔴 k and v are not trimmed after split
		if !ok {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid env file line: %s", line)
		}

		if strings.HasPrefix(v, `"`) && strings.HasSuffix(v, `"`) {
			v = strings.TrimSuffix(strings.TrimPrefix(v, `"`), `"`)
		}

		lines = append(lines, KeyValuePair{
			Key:   k,  // <-- BUG 🔴 key may have trailing whitespace
			Value: v,  // <-- BUG 🔴 value may have leading whitespace (or both if not quoted)
		})
	}

	return lines, nil
}

Example

Input .env content:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = sk-ant-xxxxx

Observed parsing:

• After strings.Cut(line, "=") → k = "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY ", v = " sk-ant-xxxxx"
• Stored pair: {"ANTHROPIC_API_KEY ", " sk-ant-xxxxx"}
• Lookup env.Get(ctx, "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY") fails because the stored key has a trailing space

Expected behavior (per Docker Compose docs: “Spaces before and after value are ignored.”):

• k = "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY", v = "sk-ant-xxxxx"
• Lookup succeeds

Recommended fix

Trim both key and value after splitting, before quote handling, so quoted values still preserve internal whitespace:

k, v, ok := strings.Cut(line, "=")
if !ok {
	return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid env file line: %s", line)
}

k = strings.TrimSpace(k)  // <-- FIX 🟢 trim key
v = strings.TrimSpace(v)  // <-- FIX 🟢 trim value

if strings.HasPrefix(v, `"`) && strings.HasSuffix(v, `"`) {
	v = strings.TrimSuffix(strings.TrimPrefix(v, `"`), `"`)
}

This aligns parsing with .env conventions and resolves lookup failures for keys written as KEY = VALUE.