What is GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_RPOXY for?

I have reproduced the issue on the latest CLI version.

Yes, I am on the latest version

I have searched existing posts and this report is not a duplicate.

Yes, this isn’t a duplicate

In which of these areas are you experiencing a problem?

Theme

Expected behavior

shopify theme dev successfully

Actual behavior

throws error: Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol must be “http:”.

Reproduction steps

run shopify theme dev

Verbose output

2026-05-23T02:30:48.943Z: Checking if there’s a version of @shopify/cli newer than 3.94.3
2026-05-23T02:30:48.943Z: Getting the latest version of NPM package: @shopify/cli
2026-05-23T02:30:48.950Z: Running command theme dev
2026-05-23T02:30:48.970Z: Running system process:
· Command: C:\UserFiles\nvm-noinstall\nodejs\node.exe C:\Users\lvjia\AppData\Local\pnpm\global\v11\1310-19e351c018d\node_modules@shopify\cli\bin\run.js notifications list --ignore-errors
· Working directory: C:/UserFiles/repos/holkieusa

2026-05-23T02:30:48.978Z: Notifications to show: 0
2026-05-23T02:30:48.983Z: Reading the content of file at shopify.theme.toml…
2026-05-23T02:30:48.990Z: Ensuring that the user is authenticated with the Theme API with the following scopes:

2026-05-23T02:30:48.990Z: Ensuring that the user is authenticated with the Admin API with the following scopes for the store holkieusa.myshopify.com:

2026-05-23T02:30:48.991Z: Getting session store…
2026-05-23T02:30:48.991Z: Getting current session ID…
2026-05-23T02:30:48.992Z: Validating existing session against the scopes:
[
“openid”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/shop.admin.graphql”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/shop.admin.themes”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/partners.collaborator-relationships.readonly”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/shop.storefront-renderer.devtools”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/partners.app.cli.access”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/destinations.readonly”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/organization.store-management”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/organization.on-demand-user-access”,
https://api.shopify.com/auth/organization.apps.manage
]
For applications:
{
“adminApi”: {
“scopes”: ,
“storeFqdn”: “holkieusa.myshopify.com
}
}

2026-05-23T02:30:48.992Z: Initiating the full authentication flow…
2026-05-23T02:30:48.993Z: Requesting device authorization code…
2026-05-23T02:30:48.993Z: Sending POST request to URL https://accounts.shopify.com/oauth/device_authorization
With request headers:

  • Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

2026-05-23T02:30:48.999Z: Request to https://accounts.shopify.com/oauth/device_authorization completed in 6 ms
With response headers:

╭─ error ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ │
│ Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol │
│ must be “http:”. │
│ │
│ To investigate the issue, examine this stack trace: │
│ at P$n (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/cli/3.94 │
│ .3/95713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be3c7/node │
│ _modules/@shopify/cli/dist/index.js:6) │
│ at getUrlProxy (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/ │
│ cli/3.94.3/95713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be │
│ 3c7/node_modules/@shopify/cli/dist/index.js:6) │
│ at addRequest (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/c │
│ li/3.94.3/95713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be3 │
│ c7/node_modules/@shopify/cli/dist/index.js:2) │
│ at new ClientRequest (node:http_client:406) │
│ at request (node:https:629) │
│ at (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/cli/3.94.3/9 │
│ 5713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be3c7/node_mod │
│ ules/@shopify/cli/dist/index.js:6) │
│ at (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/cli/3.94.3/9 │
│ 5713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be3c7/node_mod │
│ ules/@shopify/cli/dist/chunk-7ES6PV7M.js:780) │
│ at new Promise │
│ at Bd (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopify/cli/3.94. │
│ 3/95713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e41be3c7/node

│ modules/@shopify/cli/dist/chunk-7ES6PV7M.js:780) │
│ at i [as request] (Users/lvjia/AppData/Local/pnpm/store/v11/links/@shopi
│ fy/cli/3.94.3/95713573cd72514f27bd32347283493a2345cd8c5d13aeec8c684d34e4 │
│ 1be3c7/node_modules/@shopify/cli/dist/chunk-7ES6PV7M.js:785) │
│ │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

2026-05-23T02:30:49.089Z: Looking for a lockfile in C:/UserFiles/repos/holkieusa…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.100Z: Getting current session ID…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.102Z: Getting current session ID…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.111Z: Request to https://monorail-edge.shopifysvc.com/v1/produce completed in 4 ms
With response headers:

2026-05-23T02:30:49.120Z: Failed to report usage analytics: Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol must be “http:”.
2026-05-23T02:30:49.120Z: Failed to report usage analytics: Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol must be “http:”.
2026-05-23T02:30:49.125Z: Getting current session ID…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.137Z: Reporting unhandled error to Bugsnag: Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol must be “http:”.
2026-05-23T02:30:49.145Z: Looking for a lockfile in C:/UserFiles/repos/holkieusa…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.152Z: Getting current session ID…
2026-05-23T02:30:49.155Z: Error reporting to Bugsnag: U7e: Unsupported GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY configuration value: URL protocol must be “http:”.

Operating system

Windows11

CLI version

3.94.3

I don’t believe this is actually a Shopify CLI bug - instead it could be the global-agent Node library (which the CLI uses) refusing a malformed proxy env var.

The CLI picks up standard proxy env vars (HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY). The error means one of those is set to a value whose URL scheme isn’t http: — most commonly:

  • Set to an https://... URL (yes, even HTTPS_PROXY must use http:// for global-agent)
  • Set to just proxy.host:8080 without a scheme
  • Set to an empty/whitespace value

Fix on Windows

Check what’s currently set:

$env:HTTP_PROXY
$env:HTTPS_PROXY
$env:GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY

If you don’t actually go through a corporate proxy, just clear them:

Remove-Item Env:HTTP_PROXY -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item Env:HTTPS_PROXY -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item Env:GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
shopify theme dev

(If they’re set system-wide via Environment Variables in Windows settings, you’ll want to remove them there too — Remove-Item only clears them for the current shell.)

If you do need a proxy, set the scheme explicitly to http://:

$env:HTTP_PROXY  = "http://proxy.company.com:8080"
$env:HTTPS_PROXY = "http://proxy.company.com:8080"

The scheme is the proxy connection scheme, not the target — http:// is correct here for both vars.

Let me know if that clears it up.