Environment variables

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A self-hosted SAALT instance is configured through environment variables. This page lists every variable that SAALT core and the document parser read, with the default value and what the variable does.

How to set variables with Helm

With the Helm chart, set variables in your values file:

Code
 
core:
  # Plain values
  env:
    SENDER_EMAIL: [email protected]
    USAGE_LIMITS_ENABLED: "true"
  # Secret values: load every key of an existing Secret
  envFrom:
    - secretRef:
        name: saalt-config
  # Or single keys from a Secret
  extraEnv:
    - name: SMTP_PASSWORD
      valueFrom:
        secretKeyRef:
          name: mail
          key: password

documentParser:
  env:
    TESSERACT_LANG: eng+deu+fra

Values are strings. Quote numbers and booleans ("true", "6379"). A variable in core.env overrides the value the chart sets for the same name.

Core: required

Variable	Default	Description
APP_URL	—	Public URL users reach SAALT on, for example https://saalt.example.com. Used for sign-in callbacks, links in emails and file URLs. SAALT doesn't start without it. Set by the chart from appUrl.
APP_SECRET	—	Exactly 64 hexadecimal characters. Signs sessions and tokens and encrypts stored credentials. Generate it with openssl rand -hex 32. Keep it stable: changing it signs everyone out and makes stored credentials unreadable.
DATABASE_URL	—	PostgreSQL connection string, for example postgresql://user:password@host:5432/saalt. The database needs the pgvector extension. Set by the chart when the bundled PostgreSQL is enabled.

Core: networking

Variable	Default	Description
INTERNAL_APP_URL	APP_URL	Address the document parser uses to call back into core from inside the cluster — including the URLs of locally stored files it parses — so traffic doesn't leave through the public URL. Set by the chart to the core Service.
PORT	3000	Port the core HTTP server listens on.
NODE_ENV	—	Set to production for any real deployment. Set by the chart.
API_BASE_URL	SAALT service	Address of the SAALT license and configuration service. Leave unset unless SAALT asks you to change it.
SAALT_LICENSE_KEY	—	License key of the instance (Core 1.6.0 and later). When set, it takes precedence over a key entered in Admin → Global Settings, and the field there can no longer be edited. Useful for automated installs.

Core: Redis

Core and the document parser must use the same Redis and the same key prefix.

Variable	Default	Description
REDIS_HOST	localhost	Redis host. Set by the chart when the bundled Redis is enabled.
REDIS_PORT	6379	Redis port. Set by the chart.
REDIS_PASSWORD	—	Redis password. Set by the chart when the bundled Redis is enabled.
REDIS_USER	—	Redis username (Redis ACL).
REDIS_KEY_PREFIX	oak	Prefix for all cache keys and job queues. Set a different prefix when several SAALT instances share one Redis. Must match the document parser.
REDIS_CONNECTION_STRING	—	Full Redis URL. When set, core ignores the host, port, user and password variables. The document parser doesn't support it, so set the separate variables there.

Core: models

Variable	Default	Description
CLIENT_MODEL_CONFIG_ENABLED	off	true lets super admins choose the active models in Admin → Models. Off means the instance uses the model list from the SAALT configuration service. Set by the chart to true.
LITELLM_BASE_URL	—	Root URL of a LiteLLM proxy, without /v1. SAALT imports the model list from it and sends chat and embedding requests through it.
LITELLM_API_KEY	—	Key for the LiteLLM proxy.
OPENAI_API_KEY	—	OpenAI API key. Needed for OpenAI models and to list them in Admin → Models.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	—	Anthropic API key. Needed for Anthropic models.
GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY	—	Google AI Studio (Gemini) API key. Needed for Gemini models, speech and transcription.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT	—	Google Cloud project for Vertex AI models. Required to use and list Vertex models. Authentication uses Google Application Default Credentials (for example Workload Identity, or GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS pointing at a service-account key file).
CUSTOM_LLM_<NAME>	—	API key for a model you added by hand in Admin → Models → Add model. The name must start with CUSTOM_LLM_ and use only A–Z, 0–9 and _, for example CUSTOM_LLM_MY_VLLM. Enter the same name in the model form.

You only need keys for the providers you use. With LiteLLM, LITELLM_BASE_URL and LITELLM_API_KEY are usually the only model variables.

Core: Knowledge and web search

Variable	Default	Description
RERANKER_URL	SAALT endpoint	Endpoint of the reranker that re-orders Knowledge search results. If unset, search queries are sent to a reranker operated by SAALT. Set your own endpoint to keep queries inside your infrastructure.
RERANKER_MODEL	qwen3-reranker-8b-fp16	Model name sent to the reranker.
RERANKER_AUTHORIZATION	—	Value of the Authorization header sent to the reranker.
RAPTOR_ENABLED	off	true builds hierarchical summaries of Knowledge documents, which improves answers to broad questions about large documents. Costs extra model calls per document.
TAVILY_API_KEY	—	Tavily API key. Enables the web search Tool for models without built-in web search.

Core: sign-in

Email and password sign-in is on by default. Google and Microsoft sign-in turn on when both of their variables are set.

Variable	Default	Description
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID / GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	—	OAuth client for Sign in with Google. Use <APP_URL>/api/auth/callback/google as the redirect URI.
MICROSOFT_CLIENT_ID / MICROSOFT_CLIENT_SECRET	—	OAuth app for Sign in with Microsoft. Use <APP_URL>/api/auth/callback/microsoft as the redirect URI.
DISABLE_PASSWORD_AUTH	off	true removes email and password sign-in, registration and password reset, so users can only sign in with Google or Microsoft.

Core: email

SAALT sends invitations and password-reset emails over SMTP.

Variable	Default	Description
SMTP_HOST	—	SMTP server. Without it, SAALT can't send email.
SMTP_PORT	587	SMTP port. Port 465 uses implicit TLS, other ports use STARTTLS.
SMTP_USER / SMTP_PASSWORD	—	SMTP credentials.
SENDER_EMAIL	—	From address of outgoing email.
SENDER_NAME	SAALT	From display name.

Core: file storage

Uploaded files are stored on local disk unless a Google Cloud Storage bucket is configured.

Variable	Default	Description
LOCAL_STORAGE_PATH	./storage	Folder for uploaded files when local storage is used. The Helm chart mounts its volume at /app/storage, which is this default.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_BUCKET	—	When set, files are stored in this Google Cloud Storage bucket instead of on disk.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_PROJECT_ID	—	Google Cloud project of the bucket.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_PATH_PREFIX	—	Folder prefix inside the bucket, for example to share one bucket between instances.

Core: usage limits

Optional per-user token quotas.

Variable	Default	Description
USAGE_LIMITS_ENABLED	off	true turns on a weekly quota and a rolling 5-hour quota per user.
USAGE_WEEKLY_LIMIT	50000	Weekly quota per user, in token equivalents of the reference model.
USAGE_WINDOW_LIMIT	20000	Quota per user for any 5-hour window.
USAGE_FALLBACK_MODEL_KEY	—	Model users are switched to after they exceed a quota, so they can keep working on a cheaper model. Without it, nothing switches.

Core: analytics

Variable	Default	Description
POSTHOG_KEY	—	PostHog project key. Product analytics are off when unset.
POSTHOG_HOST	—	PostHog host, for example https://eu.i.posthog.com or your self-hosted PostHog.
POSTHOG_CHAT_SURVEY_ID, POSTHOG_CHAT_SURVEY_QUESTION_ID, POSTHOG_CHAT_SURVEY_COMMENT_QUESTION_ID	—	PostHog survey and question ids for the occasional "How is SAALT doing so far?" rating in chat (Core 1.6.0 and later). The rating is off while any of them is empty.

Core: Skills and MCP

Variable	Default	Description
PLATFORM_GUIDE_ZIP_URL	https://docs.saalt.ai/skills/platform-guide.zip	Source of the built-in platform-guide Skill every Agent knows (Core 1.6.0 and later). It is checked against the .sha256 file next to it; if the download fails, the previously imported version stays.
MCP_<SLUG>_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID, MCP_<SLUG>_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET, MCP_<SLUG>_OAUTH_SCOPES, MCP_<SLUG>_OAUTH_AUDIENCE, MCP_<SLUG>_OAUTH_RESOURCE	—	OAuth app for a catalog MCP server's Sign in with … option managed by SAALT (Core 1.6.0 and later). Users still sign in with their own accounts. <SLUG> is the catalog id in upper case with other characters replaced by _, for example MCP_MICROSOFT_SHAREPOINT_….
MCP_<SLUG>_AUTHORIZATION	—	Credential for a catalog MCP server's Shared access option: one account for every user, sent as the Authorization header.
MCP_<SLUG>_URL_<KEY>	—	Prefills a value in the server URL, for example a tenant id.

A managed option is only offered when its variables are set, and the credentials are never stored in the database or sent to the browser. See MCP servers.

Document parser

The document parser converts uploaded files into text for Knowledge. It receives its model settings with each job from core, so it needs no model keys.

Variable	Default	Description
REDIS_HOST, REDIS_PORT, REDIS_USER, REDIS_PASSWORD	localhost, 6379, —, —	Same Redis as core. Set by the chart when the bundled Redis is enabled.
REDIS_KEY_PREFIX	oak	Must match core.
TESSERACT_LANG	eng+deu	Languages for OCR of scanned documents without a vision model, joined with +. The default image includes English and German.
TESSERACT_RENDER_DPI	150	Resolution scanned pages are rendered at for OCR. Higher is more accurate and slower.
TESSERACT_CONCURRENCY	0	Parallel OCR workers. 0 uses all available CPUs.
TESSERACT_MIN_CHARS_PER_PAGE	50	Pages with less extracted text than this are treated as scanned and sent to OCR.
MARKITDOWN_OCR_CONCURRENCY	4	Parallel requests when a vision model reads scanned pages.
LLM_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	180	Timeout per vision-model request.
LLM_REQUEST_MAX_RETRIES	3	Retries per failed vision-model request.
DOCUMENT_PARSE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	7200	Maximum time for one document.
LIBREOFFICE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	900	Maximum time to convert one Office document.
SENTRY_DSN	—	Sentry DSN for error reporting. Off when unset.