Hi Arjun, it sounds like you haven't added your Pinecone API key, which is an essential step. You'll need to obtain a key from Pinecone and then add that to your `.env` file. I have a complete list of steps to follow in the GitHub repo's README, so please try following those. https://github.com/thawkin3/plagiarism-checker

If you run into further errors, I'd recommend submitting an issue in GitHub.