Configuration¶

All configuration is managed at runtime through the Admin UI (/config). On first boot, values are seeded from environment variables. After that, changes are made in the UI — no restart needed.

How It Works¶

Environment variables (.env) ──seed on first boot──> PostgreSQL (settings table)
                                                           │
                                                     ETS cache (fast reads)
                                                           │
                                                     Admin UI (edit at runtime)
                                                           │
                                                     PubSub broadcast (live updates)

• Settings are stored in the settings table with key, value, type, category, and sensitivity flag
• On startup, all settings are loaded into an ETS table for O(1) reads
• Changes via the Admin UI update both the database and ETS cache immediately
• PubSub broadcasts notify all subscribers of changes in real-time

Required Environment Variables¶

These must be set in .env before first boot:

LLM Providers¶

At least one LLM provider is required:

After first boot, providers are managed from Admin > LLM Providers. You can add, remove, reorder priorities, enable/disable providers, and configure per-provider inference options (e.g., num_ctx, temperature) — stored in an options JSON column on each provider. The LLM page shows a dynamic options form that adapts to the provider type. The embedding.provider setting is configured via a dropdown of enabled provider names on the Config page.

Discord (Optional)¶

Config Categories¶

Settings are organized by category in the Admin UI:

Sensitive Values¶

Settings marked as sensitive: true are AES-256-GCM encrypted in the database. The Admin UI shows partial values (masked). Sensitive settings include API keys, OAuth tokens, and webhook secrets.

Programmatic Access¶

From Elixir code:

# Read (from ETS cache — fast)
AlexClaw.Config.get("skills.rss.relevance_threshold", 0.7)

# Write (updates DB + ETS + broadcasts)
AlexClaw.Config.set("skills.rss.relevance_threshold", 0.8,
  type: "float",
  category: "skills"
)

See the full list of bootstrap variables in .env.example.