Environment variables

The repository’s .env.example file is the canonical configuration reference.

Required Community settings

Variable	Required	Description
DATABASE_URL	Outside demo mode	PostgreSQL connection string.
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET	Outside demo mode	Random secret used by Better Auth. Generate at least 32 bytes.
APP_URL	Yes for email links	Public application origin, including http:// or https://.
BETTER_AUTH_URL	Deployed auth	Origin Better Auth uses for verification links.

Registration and workspaces

Variable	Default	Description
ALLOW_REGISTRATION	false	Allows public signup after the first account when set to true. A valid invitation still works when false.
WORKSPACE_CREATION_POLICY	owner-only	Use all-users to let every registered account create workspaces.

The first account can register even when ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false. That account becomes the instance owner.

AI providers

Set at least one provider key to enable Spark AI:

Variable	Provider
OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI
AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY	Vercel AI Gateway
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	OpenRouter

AI_DEFAULT_MODEL can select a model ID from src/config/ai-models.json. DISABLE_AI=true disables Spark AI for the whole instance.

Email

Use Resend or SMTP. Set EMAIL_FROM for either route.

Variable	Description
RESEND_API_KEY	Resend credential.
SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT	SMTP server.
SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASS	SMTP credentials.
SMTP_SECURE, SMTP_IGNORE_TLS	SMTP transport controls.

Without an email provider, verification, invitation, and password-reset messages cannot reach users.

Demo mode

Set VITE_DEMO_MODE before building and keep the same value at runtime:

VITE_DEMO_MODE=true

Demo mode ignores DATABASE_URL, uses rss-demo.db, bypasses auth, seeds sample content, and blocks mutations.