Environment Variables¶

Complete reference of all environment variables used by Vectra QA.

Required Variables¶

At least one LLM provider API key is required for chatbot features.

LLM Providers¶

Variable	Description	Example
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	OpenAI API key	`sk-proj-...`
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Anthropic/Claude API key	`sk-ant-...`
`GOOGLE_API_KEY`	Google Gemini API key	`AIza...`
`MINIMAX_API_KEY`	MiniMax API key	`...`
`KIMI_API_KEY`	Kimi/Moonshot API key	`...`

Note: You only need to set one. The system will use the first available.

Core Configuration¶

Variable	Default	Description
`MCP_SERVER_URL`	`http://mcp-server:8080`	URL of MCP tool server
`OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH`	`/app/obsidian_vault`	Path to Obsidian vault
`COMMAND_CENTER_PORT`	`3000`	Dashboard HTTP port
`MCP_SERVER_PORT`	`8080`	MCP server HTTP port
`COMMAND_CENTER_HOST`	`0.0.0.0`	Dashboard bind address

Chatbot Configuration¶

Variable	Default	Description
`CHATBOT_MODEL`	`anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022`	LLM model for chatbot
`CHATBOT_MAX_HISTORY`	`50`	Max conversation history
`CHATBOT_ENABLE_STREAMING`	`true`	Enable SSE streaming

Supported Models¶

Format: provider/model-name

Provider	Model	Use Case
`anthropic`	`claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022`	Best reasoning
`openai`	`gpt-4o`	Fast and reliable
`openai`	`gpt-4o-mini`	Cost-effective
`google`	`gemini-1.5-pro`	Long context
`minimax`	`minimax-text-01`	Budget option
`kimi`	`kimi-k2`	Chinese-optimized
`local`	`llama3.1:70b`	Privacy-first

Browser Configuration¶

Variable	Default	Description
`HEADLESS`	`true`	Run browsers headlessly
`PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSER`	`chromium`	Browser engine
`PLAYWRIGHT_TIMEOUT`	`30000`	Page load timeout (ms)

Security¶

Variable	Default	Description
`COMMAND_CENTER_SECRET_KEY`	`dev-secret-key`	JWT/secret key
`MCP_API_KEY`	(none)	MCP server API key
`CORS_ORIGINS`	`*`	Allowed CORS origins

Logging¶

Variable	Default	Description
`LOG_LEVEL`	`INFO`	Logging level (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR)
`PYTHONUNBUFFERED`	`1`	Unbuffered output

Docker-Specific¶

Variable	Default	Description
`PYTHONPATH`	`/app`	Python module path
`DOCKER_BUILDKIT`	`1`	BuildKit enabled

Provider-Specific¶

OpenAI¶

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1  # Optional: for proxies

Anthropic¶

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

Google¶

GOOGLE_API_KEY=...

MiniMax¶

MINIMAX_API_KEY=...
MINIMAX_BASE_URL=https://api.minimax.chat/v1

Kimi/Moonshot¶

KIMI_API_KEY=...
KIMI_BASE_URL=https://api.moonshot.cn/v1

Local (Ollama)¶

LOCAL_LLM_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
LOCAL_LLM_MODEL=llama3.1:70b

Example Configurations¶

Development¶

# .env.development
HEADLESS=false
LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG
CHATBOT_ENABLE_STREAMING=true
CHATBOT_MAX_HISTORY=50

Production¶

# .env.production
HEADLESS=true
LOG_LEVEL=INFO
COMMAND_CENTER_SECRET_KEY=your-strong-secret
MCP_API_KEY=your-mcp-key
CORS_ORIGINS=https://yourdomain.com
CHATBOT_MODEL=openai/gpt-4o-mini

CI/CD¶

# .env.ci
HEADLESS=true
LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
CHATBOT_MODEL=openai/gpt-4o-mini
CHATBOT_MAX_HISTORY=20

Minimal (Local Testing)¶

# .env.minimal
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
MCP_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8080

Docker Compose Environment¶

Override in docker-compose.yml:

services:
  command-center:
    environment:
      - CHATBOT_MODEL=openai/gpt-4o
      - CHATBOT_MAX_HISTORY=100
      - HEADLESS=false

Or use .env file:

# .env
docker compose up

Validation¶

Verify configuration:

# config_check.py
import os

required = ['OPENAI_API_KEY', 'ANTHROPIC_API_KEY', 'GOOGLE_API_KEY']
set_providers = [p for p in required if os.getenv(p)]

if not set_providers:
    print("❌ No LLM provider configured")
else:
    print(f"✅ Providers: {', '.join(set_providers)}")

# Check core config
if not os.getenv('MCP_SERVER_URL'):
    print("❌ MCP_SERVER_URL not set")
else:
    print("✅ MCP_SERVER_URL configured")

Security Best Practices¶

Never commit .env — It's in .gitignore for a reason
Rotate API keys — Change keys quarterly
Use secrets manager — In production, use Docker secrets or cloud KMS
Limit CORS — Set specific origins, not *
Strong secrets — Use 32+ character random strings

# Generate strong secret
openssl rand -hex 32

# Use in production
COMMAND_CENTER_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)