Fixing 'no armored data found' error when adding a GPG key to Terraform Cloud

Introduction

When adding a generated GPG key as described  in the documentation, it is common for editors/environments to add empty characters to the key (even when directly copy/pasting) that can interfere with a successful addition of the key.

The following error is indicative of this when using the API:

{
"errors": [
"openpgp: invalid argument: no armored data found"
]
}

The same error can also be seen when adding the GPG keys via the associated UI in Terraform Cloud:

https://registry.terraform.io/settings/gpg-keys

Procedure

• First, you'll want a payload.json file to add the key to (as illustrated here)

• Then, use the jq utility to insert your GPG key(my-gpg-key.gpg in the example below) into the payload.json file:

> jq --arg armor "$(cat my-gpg-key.gpg)" '.data.attributes."ascii-armor"=$armor' payload.json > gpg-payload.json

• After running this command, add the key using the resulting payload.json file as outlined in the documentation:

curl \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
--header "Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json" \
--request POST \
--data @payload.json \
https://app.terraform.io/api/registry/private/v2/gpg-keys

Additional Information

• If you continue to experience issues, please contact Hashicorp Support