Environment Variables

The application uses pydantic-settings to manage configuration via app/core/config.py.

Configuration Table

Variable	Default / Example	Purpose
OPENAI_API_KEY	sk-...	Critical. Used for embeddings, reranking, and chat.
PINECONE_API_KEY	pcsk_...	Critical. Connection to Vector DB.
SUPABASE_URL	https://...	Supabase project URL.
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY	...	Critical. Service role key used for all backend operations. Bypasses RLS.
ADMIN_API_KEY	...	Internal key fallback for admin bootstrap (deprecated, migrate to JWT).
OPENAI_CHAT_MODEL	gpt-4o	Main reasoning model.
OPENAI_RERANK_MODEL	gpt-4o-mini	Cost-effective model for reranking candidates.
OPENAI_EMBEDDING_MODEL	text-embedding-3-small	Embedding model for vector generation.
PINECONE_INDEX_NAME	curriculum-1536	Target index in Pinecone.
ENV	local	local or prod. Affects CORS and logging.
BASE_CHAT_COST	5	Tokens deducted per chat message.
TOKEN_BUFFER	10	Extra tokens reserved to prevent mid-request failures.

Note: SUPABASE_ANON_KEY and SUPABASE_KEY have been removed. The backend uses only SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY for all operations. The SUPABASE_SERVICE_KEY alias is maintained for backward compatibility and is auto-populated from SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY.

.env.example Usage

Always keep .env.example updated with safe placeholder values. - DO NOT commit the actual .env file. - Add new variables to app/core/config.py first, then update .env.example.

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