Environment Variables

Complete reference for all environment variables required by CodePilot services.

CodePilot uses per-service environment files. Each application (API, worker, web) has its own .env file with service-specific configuration.

Root `.env` — Docker Compose

Used by docker-compose.yml to configure PostgreSQL and Redis:

Variable	Description	Example
`NODE_ENV`	Environment	`development`
`PORT`	API server port	`8080`
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string	`postgresql://codepilot:codepilot@localhost:5432/codepilot`
`REDIS_HOST`	Redis host	`localhost`
`REDIS_PORT`	Redis port	`6379`
`ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET`	JWT access token secret	(random string)
`REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET`	JWT refresh token secret	(random string)
`ENCRYPTION_SECRET`	256-bit hex key for encryption	(see below)
`SESSION_SECRET`	Session signing secret	(random string)
`GITHUB_CLIENT_ID`	GitHub OAuth App client ID	`Iv23li...`
`GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`	GitHub OAuth App client secret	`fbc6b9...`
`GITHUB_APP_ID`	GitHub App ID	`4106749`
`GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET`	Webhook signature secret	(random string)
`GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY`	GitHub App RSA private key	`-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n...`
`OLLAMA_URL`	Ollama API endpoint	`http://localhost:11434`
`OLLAMA_CHAT_MODEL`	Model for chat/code review	`qwen2.5-coder:3b`
`OLLAMA_EMBED_MODEL`	Model for embeddings	`nomic-embed-text`
`FRONTEND_URL`	Frontend origin for CORS	`http://localhost:3000`

The worker shares most variables with the API:

Variable	Description	Example
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string	(same as API)
`REDIS_HOST`	Redis host	`localhost`
`REDIS_PORT`	Redis port	`6379`
`ENCRYPTION_SECRET`	256-bit hex key	(same as API)
`OLLAMA_URL`	Ollama API endpoint	`http://localhost:11434`
`OLLAMA_CHAT_MODEL`	Chat model name	`qwen2.5-coder:3b`
`OLLAMA_EMBED_MODEL`	Embedding model name	`nomic-embed-text`
`GITHUB_APP_ID`	GitHub App ID	(same as API)
`GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY`	GitHub App private key	(same as API)

Variable	Description	Example
`NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL`	Backend API URL	`http://localhost:8080/api`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_SESSION_COOKIE_NAME`	Session cookie key	`codepilot_session`

Use openssl to generate secure random strings:

# 256-bit hex key for ENCRYPTION_SECRET
openssl rand -hex 32

# Random string for ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET, REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET, SESSION_SECRET
openssl rand -base64 32

# Hex string for GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET
openssl rand -hex 32

Security

Never commit .env files to version control. Add them to .gitignore and use a secrets manager for production deployments.

Host Configuration

When running services inside Docker containers, hostnames differ from local development: