Configuration

Rounds is configured through environment variables.

Core settings

Variable	Required	Description
JWT_SECRET	Yes	Secret for signing auth tokens. Minimum 32 characters.
PORT	No	API server port.
HOST	No	API bind host.
CORS_ORIGINS	No	Comma-separated list of allowed origins.
API_KEYS	No	Comma-separated service API keys.

LLM settings

Variable	Required	Description
LLM_PROVIDER	No	Default provider.
LLM_API_KEY	No	Primary provider API key.
LLM_MODEL	No	Default model name.
LLM_FALLBACK_PROVIDER	No	Optional fallback provider.

Storage settings

Variable	Required	Description
DATABASE_URL	No	Database connection string. Use postgres:// or postgresql:// for Postgres. Leave unset for local SQLite mode.
DATABASE_POOL_SIZE	No	Pool size for Postgres.
DATABASE_SSL	No	Enable Postgres SSL.
REDIS_URL	No	Redis connection string.
REDIS_PREFIX	No	Redis key prefix.
DATA_DIR	No	Local data directory for containerized or SQLite mode.
SQLITE_PATH	No	Explicit SQLite file path. Overrides DATA_DIR.

Rounds selects its database before the server starts. The setup wizard writes application settings into the active backend; it does not switch databases.

Supported backends:

Backend	How to enable	Best for
SQLite	Leave DATABASE_URL unset	Local development, npm installs, single-process evaluation
Postgres	Set DATABASE_URL=postgresql://... before first start	Production, Kubernetes, multi-replica deployments

By default, Rounds uses SQLite:

• npm: ~/.syntropize/rounds.db
• Helm/container: ${DATA_DIR}/rounds.db, which defaults to /var/lib/syntropize/rounds.db

When DATABASE_URL starts with postgres:// or postgresql://, Rounds uses Postgres for the full repository layer: auth, RBAC, settings, datasources, dashboards, investigations, alerts, notifications, chat, and feed data. The repository boundary is database-agnostic so additional SQL backends can be added without changing product flows, but SQLite and Postgres are the supported backends today.

Choose the database backend before first startup. The setup wizard can store application settings such as the LLM provider, but it cannot switch databases because Rounds must connect to its database before the wizard can load. Changing DATABASE_URL later starts Rounds against a different empty or pre-existing database; it does not migrate data from SQLite to Postgres.

Docs note

The canonical environment template lives in the repository root as .env.example. Keep that file and this page in sync when configuration changes.