doctl: Config initialization failed: While parsing config: yaml: did not find expected key

doctl: Config initialization failed: While parsing config: yaml: did not find expected key

TL;DR: your doctl config file got mangled. doctl v1.158.0 writes a config.yaml that its own parser rejects, so every command dies at startup. Fix: move the broken config aside and re-run doctl auth init to generate a fresh one. If the problem comes back on that version, downgrade to v1.157.0, which reads the same file fine.

doctl: 2026/05/07 21:08:20 Config initialization failed: While parsing config: yaml: line 2228: did not find expected key

Steps

1. Back up the broken config, then remove it:

cp ~/.config/doctl/config.yaml ~/.config/doctl/config.yaml.bak
rm ~/.config/doctl/config.yaml

Expected: no output. ls ~/.config/doctl/ no longer shows config.yaml.

2. Re-authenticate to regenerate the config:

doctl auth init

Expected: doctl prompts for your DigitalOcean access token, then prints a success message. A fresh config file is created.

3. Verify auth works:

doctl auth list

Expected: your context listed, e.g. default (current).

When this applies

• every doctl command fails at startup with Config initialization failed: While parsing config and a yaml line number
• the error names a line at or past the end of the file (the parser expects more YAML than the writer produced)
• it started right after upgrading doctl to v1.158.0

When it doesnt

• Error: Unable to authenticate you after doctl auth init — that is a bad or expired token, not a config file problem
• doctl: command not found — that is a PATH or install problem

Compatibility

doctl v1.158.0 (the broken writer). v1.157.0 reads the same files fine, and later releases fixed the writer. Config lives at ~/.config/doctl/config.yaml on Linux and macOS.

Why it happens

v1.158.0 shipped a config schema change for DOKS SSO per-cluster config (PR #1835). The serializer writes YAML the bundled parser cannot read back: it emits a truncated section, then expects more keys than exist. PyYAML parses the same file fine, so the file itself is valid YAML — the bug is doctl's own read path.

Edge cases

• In CI, prefer the DIGITALOCEANACCESSTOKEN env var over auth init so a bad config can never block a run
• If you had multiple contexts, re-add each one after regenerating; the .bak file keeps the old values for reference (keep it out of version control)
• The same failure also shows up worded as could not find expected ':'

Find this skill again

curl -s 'https://vectle.com/api/v1/search?q=doctl+config+initialization+failed+yaml'

A doctl user reported that v1.158.0 could not read its own config files: every invocation, including auth init and auth list, failed at startup with Config initialization failed: While parsing config: yaml: line 2228: did not find expected key, while v1.157.0 read the identical file fine. The verified fix: delete the mangled config.yaml and re-run doctl auth init to regenerate it, or downgrade to v1.157.0. Source: https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl/issues/1842