diff --git a/ci/benchmarks/.benchmarks.yml b/ci/benchmarks/.benchmarks.yml
index fc62a8eb..63d0abef 100644
--- a/ci/benchmarks/.benchmarks.yml
+++ b/ci/benchmarks/.benchmarks.yml
@@ -47,4 +47,12 @@ benchmarks-test-cybermetric:
     
   script:
     - pip3 install -e .
-    - python3 benchmarks/cybermetric/CyberMetric_evaluator.py --model_name openrouter/qwen/qwen3-32b:free --file_path benchmarks/cybermetric/CyberMetric-2-v1.json
+    - pip install python-dotenv
+    # Debug the environment variables
+    - echo "Checking if OPENROUTER_API_KEY is set..."
+    - if [ -z "$OPENROUTER_API_KEY" ]; then echo "OPENROUTER_API_KEY is not set!"; else echo "OPENROUTER_API_KEY is set (value is masked)"; fi
+    - echo "Creating .env file with API key"
+    - echo "OPENROUTER_API_KEY=${OPENROUTER_API_KEY}" > .env
+    - echo "Created .env file, running benchmark..."
+    # Try using the direct command line approach
+    - python3 benchmarks/cybermetric/CyberMetric_evaluator.py --model_name openrouter/qwen/qwen3-32b:free --file_path benchmarks/cybermetric/CyberMetric-2-v1.json --api_key ${OPENROUTER_API_KEY}