diff --git a/.env b/.env
index af1265e..6fa5ec4 100644
--- a/.env
+++ b/.env
@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@
 # If you want to push to a local instance of explorer, then specify the app-api docker container name like: 
 # http://<app-api-docker-container-name>:8000 to push to the local explorer instance.
 INVARIANT_API_URL=https://explorer.invariantlabs.ai
-GUADRAILS_API_URL=https://explorer.invariantlabs.ai
+GUADRAILS_API_URL=https://explorer.invariantlabs.ai
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/gateway/common/config_manager.py b/gateway/common/config_manager.py
index ad85149..5978690 100644
--- a/gateway/common/config_manager.py
+++ b/gateway/common/config_manager.py
@@ -9,12 +9,15 @@ import fastapi
 from httpx import HTTPStatusError
 
 
-def extract_policy_from_headers(request: fastapi.Request) -> Optional[str]:
+def extract_policy_from_headers(request: Optional[fastapi.Request]) -> Optional[str]:
     """
     Extracts the guardrailing policy from the request headers if present.
 
     Returns 'None' if no such header is present.
     """
+    if request is None:
+        return None
+
     policy = request.headers.get("Invariant-Guardrails")
     # undo unicode_escape
     if policy: