[critical] Java SDK: ApiClient NPE crashes all examples for OSS users — no auth keys needed for OSS

[nthmost-orkes]

Problem

Any first-time Java SDK user connecting to a plain OSS Conductor server hits an immediate NullPointerException before executing a single line of example code.

This was discovered during a live zero-to-one run of the Java SDK examples against a local OSS Conductor server (started with conductor server start).

Reproduction

export CONDUCTOR_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8080/api
# no auth keys — correct for OSS
./gradlew :examples:compileJava
java -cp <examples-classpath> com.netflix.conductor.sdk.examples.helloworld.Main

Error:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "String.trim()"
because the return value of "java.lang.System.getenv(String)" is null
    at io.orkes.conductor.client.ApiClient$ApiClientBuilder.applyEnvVariables(ApiClient.java:186)

Root cause: ApiClient.applyEnvVariables() calls .trim() on the result of System.getenv("CONDUCTOR_SERVER_AUTH_KEY") without null-checking it first. Since OSS users don't set auth keys, both the primary and legacy env vars are null — crash.

Technical issue filed: conductor-oss/java-sdk#94

Additional Zero-to-One Issues Found (same session)

Two more high-priority issues found during the same live run:

• examples module has no run mechanism: no application plugin, no run scripts, no README instructions java-sdk#95 — examples module has no run task; ./gradlew :examples:run fails immediately with "task not found". No README shows how to execute any example.
• helloworld/Main.java and most examples use OrkesApiClient — crash without auth for OSS users java-sdk#96 — Most examples (including helloworld/Main.java) use the Orkes-specific ApiClient that requires auth credentials. Only the gettingstarted package uses the base ConductorClient that works with OSS. This is undocumented.

What Works

The com.netflix.conductor.gettingstarted examples (CreateWorkflow, StartWorkflow, HelloWorker) do work correctly against an OSS server when invoked manually with a classpath. Workflows were confirmed to complete successfully.

User Impact

A developer following any Java SDK documentation hits a crash before getting any output. This blocks zero-to-one onboarding entirely.

[nthmost-orkes]

Fixed locally in conductor-oss/java-sdk — waiting on PR conductor-oss/java-sdk#97 to merge. That PR fixes the NPE, adds a run task to the examples module, and removes the Orkes-specific ApiClient from the helloworld example so it works with OSS out of the box.