Configuration

The environment variables a self-hosted server reads.

Copy .env.example to .env and adjust it. Only DATABASE_URL is required; everything else has a default or turns a feature off when empty. The full list, with comments, is in .env.example.

Never commit .env.

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Core

Variable	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	Postgres connection string. Required
PORT	HTTP port. Default 3000
PUBLIC_BASE_URL	Base URL used in item links
SESSION_SECRET	Signs login cookies. Generate one with openssl rand -hex 32; without it, logins reset on every restart

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Search

Variable	Purpose
EMBED_API_URL, EMBED_API_KEY, EMBED_MODEL	Any OpenAI-compatible embeddings endpoint. Leave the key empty for keyword-only search

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Chat

The built-in chat at /chat.html runs on a model you configure.

Variable	Purpose
LLM_API_URL, LLM_API_KEY, LLM_MODEL	Any OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint. Leave the key empty to turn chat off; MCP and signup keep working
CHAT_TURNS_HOURLY_AUTHED, CHAT_TURNS_HOURLY_ANON	Chat turns per hour, per account and per IP. Defaults 60 and 10
CHAT_DAILY_TOKEN_BUDGET	Daily token budget for the whole server. Default 2000000; 0 removes it

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OAuth

Variable	Purpose
OAUTH_DISABLED	Set to 1 to turn OAuth off. Clients then fall back to API keys
OAUTH_ACCESS_TTL_S, OAUTH_REFRESH_TTL_S	Token lifetimes in seconds. Defaults 30 minutes and 30 days

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Payments and shipping

Variable	Purpose
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET	Stripe Connect payments. With no key, orders run off-platform. With a key but no webhook secret, payments stay pending until the webhook is set up
EASYPOST_API_KEY, EASYPOST_WEBHOOK_SECRET	Optional automatic carrier tracking. Without it, buyers confirm delivery
ADMIN_API_KEY	Turns on the admin route for resolving disputes. Must be at least 32 characters

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Order windows

Positive integers; the defaults are shown.

Variable	Default	Meaning
PAYMENT_DEADLINE_HOURS	24	An unpaid order is cancelled after this
DISPUTE_WINDOW_HOURS	48	How long a buyer can dispute after delivery
PICKUP_AUTOCONFIRM_DAYS	14	A local pickup is marked delivered after this
DISPUTE_AUTOREFUND_HOURS	72	A disputed order that never shipped is refunded after this
MAX_PENDING_ORDERS_PER_BUYER	3	Unpaid orders a buyer can hold at once
REORDER_COOLDOWN_MINUTES	60	After cancelling an order, how long a buyer waits before ordering the same item again

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Production

docker-compose.prod.yml runs the server behind Caddy and also reads SITE_DOMAIN and POSTGRES_PASSWORD. See the deployment runbook.