Configuration

What this page covers

This page focuses on environment variables you need to run and tune Postgram.

Core workflow

1. Start from .env.example and populate mandatory values.
2. Set server/runtime settings (DATABASE_URL, PORT, LOG_LEVEL).
3. Choose provider settings for embeddings and optional extraction.
4. Validate startup and queue behavior with health + search checks.

Server

Variable	Required	Default	Meaning
DATABASE_URL	yes		Full Postgres connection string.
OPENAI_API_KEY	conditional		Required for OpenAI embeddings or OpenAI extraction.
PORT	no	3100	HTTP/MCP server port.
LOG_LEVEL	no	info	Logger level.
ENRICHMENT_POLL_INTERVAL_MS	no	1000	Enrichment worker polling interval.

Embeddings

Variable	Required	Default	Meaning
EMBEDDING_PROVIDER	no	openai	openai or ollama.
EMBEDDING_MODEL	no	provider-default	Embedding model name.
EMBEDDING_DIMENSIONS	no	provider-default	Must match active embedding model.
EMBEDDING_BASE_URL	conditionally	OLLAMA_BASE_URL fallback	For Ollama host.
EMBEDDING_API_KEY	no		Optional bearer token.

For Docker + Ollama on the host, use EMBEDDING_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434.

LLM Extraction

Variable	Required	Default	Meaning
EXTRACTION_ENABLED	no	false	Enable extraction pass.
EXTRACTION_PROVIDER	no	openai	openai, anthropic, ollama, openai-compatible.
EXTRACTION_MODEL	no	provider-default	LLM model name for extraction.
EXTRACTION_BASE_URL	when provider-compatible		Base URL for compatible OpenAI-compatible API.
EXTRACTION_API_KEY	no		Optional bearer token for extraction API.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	conditionally		Required for Anthropic provider.
OLLAMA_BASE_URL	no	http://localhost:11434	Base URL for Ollama extraction.

CLI/Admin/Backup

Variable	Required	Purpose
PGM_API_URL	yes	pgm server URL.
PGM_API_KEY	yes	pgm authentication token.
DATABASE_URL or PGM_DATABASE_URL	yes (admin)	DB access for admin commands.
PGM_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE	when encrypted backup	GPG passphrase.

Notes

• EXTRACTION_AUTO_CREATE_ENTITIES and semantic-neighbor settings allow relationship densification without re-processing everything manually.
• Use admin embeddings migrate when changing vector dimensions after changing model family.