Stuck w/ the Quickstart guide

Complete magento newbie here, I’m following the guide at
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/commerce-operations/installation-guide/composer.html?lang=en
but I’m not getting prompted for the keys.
I also tried providing the MAGEID:TOKEN pattern as described here (after actually doing the steps there)
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/commerce-operations/installation-guide/prerequisites/authentication-keys.html?lang=
I can run the example there just fine ,but when i apply it to the project creation command:

composer create-project --repository-url=https://<MAGEID>:<TOKEN>@repo.magento.com/ magento/project-community-edition . 

it says my keys are invalid.

so am I missing something?
E.g. where to actually save the keys?
I’ve searched that the pair should be in the auth.json of the composer project, but as you can see, I’m trying to create it.

Thanks in advance!