Configuration Reference

tripl is configured entirely through environment variables. The backend reads them into a single Settings object (Pydantic BaseSettings); values can come from the process environment or from a .env file in the backend working directory (model_config = {"env_file": ".env", "extra": "ignore"}). Unknown variables are ignored, so a single .env can hold backend, frontend, and Docker Compose values side by side.

The canonical starting point is .env.example. Copy it to .env and fill in real values.

Env-var names

Every setting below is matched case-insensitively by its uppercased field name: the database_url field is set with DATABASE_URL, rate_limit_login_per_minute with RATE_LIMIT_LOGIN_PER_MINUTE, and so on. Defaults shown are the in-code defaults from Settings; the production compose.yaml overrides several of them, as noted.

How DEBUG changes everything

DEBUG is the master switch that decides whether tripl runs in a forgiving development posture or a locked-down production one.

• Default: false.
• Accepted spellings (normalized before validation): release, prod, production are treated as false; dev, development are treated as true. Any other value is parsed as a normal boolean.
• When DEBUG=false, the FastAPI lifespan calls Settings.assert_production_ready(), which refuses to start the process unless required secrets are set (see Production startup checks).
• DEBUG also affects CORS resolution: in debug, an empty allow-list falls back to *.

warning

assert_production_ready() runs from the FastAPI app lifespan. CLI tools and the test suite that import Settings directly are not gated by it — only a running API process enforces the checks.

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Database & Broker

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	postgresql+asyncpg://tripl:tripl@localhost:5432/tripl	Yes (must not keep dev creds)	Async SQLAlchemy URL used by the FastAPI app (asyncpg driver).
SYNC_DATABASE_URL	postgresql+psycopg://tripl:tripl@localhost:5432/tripl	Yes (must not keep dev creds)	Sync SQLAlchemy URL used by Alembic migrations and the Celery worker (psycopg driver).
RABBITMQ_URL	amqp://guest:guest@localhost:5672//	Yes (must not keep dev creds)	Celery broker AMQP URL.
REDIS_URL	"" (empty)	No	Cache backend. Empty disables caching entirely — every read falls through to PostgreSQL.

Async vs sync URLs are not interchangeable

tripl maintains two PostgreSQL URLs pointing at the same database: DATABASE_URL uses the async asyncpg driver for the web app, while SYNC_DATABASE_URL uses the synchronous psycopg driver for Alembic and Celery. Keep host, port, database, and credentials identical between them; only the +asyncpg / +psycopg driver suffix differs.

In the production compose.yaml these are derived from compose-level secrets (the broker user is tripl, not guest):

DATABASE_URL: postgresql+asyncpg://tripl:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/tripl
SYNC_DATABASE_URL: postgresql+psycopg://tripl:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/tripl
RABBITMQ_URL: amqp://tripl:${RABBITMQ_PASSWORD}@rabbitmq:5672//
REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379/0

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Identity & Secrets

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
ENCRYPTION_KEY	""	Yes	Fernet key encrypting data-source and alert-destination secrets at rest. Must be a valid Fernet key.
SECRET_KEY	""	Yes	Application secret keying the HMAC over session tokens. Rotating it invalidates all existing sessions (users re-login once).
APP_BASE_URL	""	Effectively yes¹	Public base URL of the deployment. Used to derive CORS origins when CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS is empty.
SESSION_COOKIE_NAME	tripl_session	No	Name of the session cookie.
SESSION_TTL_HOURS	168 (24×7)	No	Session lifetime in hours.
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE	false	Yes (must be true)	Marks the session cookie Secure so it is only sent over HTTPS.
DEBUG	false	n/a	Master dev/prod switch — see above.

¹ APP_BASE_URL is not checked by name, but if CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS is empty the production check fails unless APP_BASE_URL supplies an origin.

Generate the secrets:

# ENCRYPTION_KEY (Fernet)
python -c 'from cryptography.fernet import Fernet; print(Fernet.generate_key().decode())'

# SECRET_KEY (any long random value)
python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))'

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Edge & Hardening

CORS

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS	""	Effectively yes¹	Comma-separated explicit origin allow-list.

Effective origins are resolved by Settings.cors_origins() in this order:

1. If CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS is set, split on commas (whitespace trimmed).
2. Else if DEBUG=true, fall back to ["*"].
3. Else if APP_BASE_URL is set, use it (trailing slash stripped).
4. Else deny all ([]).

Security headers

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
SECURITY_HEADERS_ENABLED	true	No	Toggles the security-headers middleware.
HSTS_ENABLED	false	No	Adds Strict-Transport-Security. Only safe behind HTTPS with secure cookies.
HSTS_MAX_AGE_SECONDS	31536000 (1 year)	No	max-age for HSTS.
CONTENT_SECURITY_POLICY	""	No	Optional CSP. Left unset by default. When SERVE_FRONTEND is on and this is empty, a SPA-appropriate CSP is applied automatically.

tip

The production compose.yaml sets SECURITY_HEADERS_ENABLED=true and defaults HSTS_ENABLED to true (overridable via the HSTS_ENABLED env). Enable HSTS only once you serve over HTTPS exclusively.

Frontend serving

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
SERVE_FRONTEND	false	No	When true, the API also serves the built SPA from FRONTEND_DIST_DIR, so production runs a single container.
FRONTEND_DIST_DIR	""	No	Path to the built SPA assets served when SERVE_FRONTEND is on.

note

In the published image, SERVE_FRONTEND / FRONTEND_DIST_DIR are baked in — the single app container serves the JSON API and the SPA on port 8000. In development the Vite dev server serves the SPA with HMR and proxies /api to the backend, so these stay at their defaults.

Rate limiting

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED	true	No	Master toggle for auth-endpoint rate limiting.
RATE_LIMIT_LOGIN_PER_MINUTE	5	No	Login attempts per (ip, route) per minute. 0 disables this limit.
RATE_LIMIT_REGISTER_PER_HOUR	3	No	Registrations per (ip, route) per hour. 0 disables this limit.
RATE_LIMIT_TRUST_FORWARDED_FOR	false	No	Derive client IP from X-Real-IP / leftmost X-Forwarded-For instead of the socket peer.

Only trust forwarded headers behind a trusted proxy

The limiter uses an in-memory token bucket per worker. Leave RATE_LIMIT_TRUST_FORWARDED_FOR=false (the default) whenever the API is the edge — including the consolidated single container. Enable it only when a trusted proxy/LB overwrites X-Real-IP on every request; a raw, attacker- controlled X-Forwarded-For on a directly exposed API lets a caller rotate it per request and bypass the limit. For multi-worker deployments, front the API with a shared limiter or LB.

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Observability

Variable	Default	Required in prod?	Purpose
REQUEST_ID_HEADER	X-Request-ID	No	Header used to read/emit a per-request correlation ID.
LOG_LEVEL	INFO	No	Log level (uppercased and trimmed).
LOG_JSON	false	No	Emit one-line JSON logs instead of plain text. Compose/k8s should enable this.
PROMETHEUS_METRICS_ENABLED	false	No	Exposes the /metrics endpoint and Celery task instrumentation.
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	""	No	Setting a non-empty value opts the API and worker into FastAPI/SQLAlchemy/Celery auto-instrumentation via an OTLP exporter. No-op when blank or when the opentelemetry-* packages are absent.
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME	tripl	No	Service name reported by the OTLP exporter.

tip

compose.yaml defaults LOG_JSON to true (overridable). Expose /metrics only on an internal-only ingress path or scrape via a sidecar.

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Optional features

These groups are off (or unconfigured) by default. Several enable sending plan content or photos to external providers, so they are explicitly opt-in.

Hybrid knowledge search (embeddings)

Lexical/fuzzy search runs locally against PostgreSQL with no extra config. Embeddings are opt-in because indexed text may include internal tracking-plan content sent to the configured provider.

Variable	Default	Purpose
SEARCH_EMBEDDINGS_ENABLED	false	Enables embedding-backed search.
SEARCH_EMBEDDING_PROVIDER	openai	Embedding provider.
SEARCH_EMBEDDING_MODEL	text-embedding-3-small	Embedding model.
SEARCH_EMBEDDING_DIMENSIONS	1536	Vector dimensions.
SEARCH_EMBEDDING_API_KEY	""	Provider API key; falls back to OPENAI_API_KEY if empty.
OPENAI_API_KEY	""	Shared OpenAI key used as fallback for search embeddings and AI features.

AI features (LLM descriptions, Q&A)

Disabled by default because plan content (event names, descriptions, field names) is sent to the configured provider when enabled.

Variable	Default	Purpose
AI_ENABLED	false	Master toggle for LLM-powered features.
AI_BASE_URL	https://api.openai.com/v1	OpenAI-compatible base URL.
AI_MODEL	gpt-4o-mini	Chat/completion model.
AI_API_KEY	""	Provider API key; falls back to OPENAI_API_KEY if empty.
AI_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	30	Per-request timeout.
AI_MAX_OUTPUT_TOKENS	700	Output token cap.

Email alerts (SMTP)

Leaving SMTP_HOST blank disables email destinations: creating them still works, but sends fail with a friendly error pointing at this config. The worker reads these at send time, so changes take effect without re-creating destinations.

Variable	Default	Purpose
SMTP_HOST	""	SMTP server host. Blank disables email delivery.
SMTP_PORT	587	SMTP port.
SMTP_USERNAME	""	SMTP auth username.
SMTP_PASSWORD	""	SMTP auth password.
SMTP_USE_TLS	true	Use STARTTLS/TLS.
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS	""	Default From: address when a destination doesn't override it.

Event photo storage

Variable	Default	Purpose
PHOTO_STORAGE_BACKEND	local	local (filesystem, served via authenticated API endpoint) or gcs (Google Cloud Storage).
PHOTO_LOCAL_DIR	./var/photos	Directory for the local backend.
PHOTO_MAX_SIZE_MB	10	Max upload size in MB.
PHOTO_ALLOWED_MIME	image/jpeg,image/png,image/gif,image/webp	Allowed MIME types (comma-separated).
GCS_PHOTO_BUCKET	""	GCS bucket for the gcs backend.
GCS_PHOTO_CREDENTIALS_PATH	""	Service-account JSON path. Empty falls back to Application Default Credentials.
GCS_PHOTO_PUBLIC	false	Return public URLs instead of time-limited signed URLs.
GCS_PHOTO_SIGNED_URL_TTL_SECONDS	3600	Signed-URL lifetime when not public.

Warehouse query row caps

Variable	Default	Purpose
SCAN_ROW_LIMIT_DEFAULT	50000	Default row cap for scan/replay when no scan-config override is set.
METRICS_ROW_LIMIT_DEFAULT	100000	Default row cap for metrics queries when no override is set.

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Production startup checks (assert_production_ready)

When DEBUG=false, the FastAPI lifespan refuses to start and raises a RuntimeError listing every problem if any of the following hold:

1. ENCRYPTION_KEY is empty — data-source and alert-destination secrets would be stored as plaintext.
2. ENCRYPTION_KEY is not a valid Fernet key — it is validated by constructing Fernet(key).
3. SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE is false — session cookies would be sent over plain HTTP.
4. SECRET_KEY is empty — session-token hashes would be unkeyed and guessable.
5. Resolved CORS origins are empty — no browser could call the API. Set CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS or APP_BASE_URL.
6. Resolved CORS origins are exactly ["*"] — browsers reject credentialed (cookie) requests against a wildcard origin, breaking session auth. Set an explicit origin.
7. DATABASE_URL, SYNC_DATABASE_URL, or RABBITMQ_URL still contain dev-default credentials — any of the markers tripl:tripl or guest:guest surviving into a non-debug deploy fails the check.

note

These checks are pure secret/edge hygiene. Optional-feature variables (AI, search, SMTP, photo storage, OTEL, Prometheus) are not validated here — they fail gracefully or stay disabled when unconfigured.

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Compose / deployment variables

These are consumed by Docker Compose and the image, not by the backend Settings object. They appear in .env.example so one .env covers the whole stack.

Variable	Default	Used by	Purpose
POSTGRES_USER	tripl	PostgreSQL container	DB superuser (compose uses tripl).
POSTGRES_DB	tripl	PostgreSQL container	Database name.
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	— (required)	Compose	Builds the DB URLs. The prod stack requires a non-default value.
RABBITMQ_PASSWORD	— (required)	Compose	Builds RABBITMQ_URL; broker user is tripl.
TRIPL_IMAGE	ghcr.io/vladenisov/tripl	Compose	Published image to run.
TRIPL_VERSION	latest	Compose	Image tag — pin to a released tag in production.
API_PORT	8000	Dev tooling	Backend port for local/dev runs (the production compose.yaml hardcodes 8000:8000).
VITE_API_URL	http://127.0.0.1:8000	Frontend build	Base URL the SPA calls; baked in at build time.

Compose enforces required secrets too

In compose.yaml, POSTGRES_PASSWORD, RABBITMQ_PASSWORD, ENCRYPTION_KEY, SECRET_KEY, and APP_BASE_URL use the ${VAR:?...} form, so docker compose fails fast with a clear message if any is unset — before the app even runs its own assert_production_ready() checks.

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See also

• Deployment — bringing the stack up with the production compose file.
• Release process — building and publishing the image with bin/release.sh.
• Administration — day-2 operations.
• Troubleshooting — diagnosing common failures.
• Source of truth: config.py, .env.example, compose.yaml.