Environment Variables

Environment variables override both global and workspace config.toml settings for the current terminal process session.

---

Complete environment variable reference

General

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_MAX_OUTPUT_TOKENS	max_output_tokens	Limit output token length.
CTXSIFT_TIMEOUT_MS	timeout_ms	Request timeout duration in milliseconds.
CTXSIFT_RETRIES	retries	Request retry count.
CTXSIFT_RECOVERY_ENABLED	recovery_enabled	Enable or disable deterministic output recovery before final return.

Local compression

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_MODEL	local.model	Hugging Face model repository ID.
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_GGUF_FILENAME	local.gguf_filename	GGUF filename (required for CPU llama.cpp).
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_LLAMA_CONTEXT_WINDOW	local.llama_context_window	CPU context window size.
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_DEVICE	local.device	Execution device: auto, cpu, cuda, mps.
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_DTYPE	local.dtype	GPU model precision: auto, float16, bfloat16.
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_ATTN_IMPLEMENTATION	local.attn_implementation	Attention implementation: sdpa, flash_attention_2.
CTXSIFT_LOCAL_QUANTIZATION	local.quantization	Quantization: none, bnb-8bit, bnb-4bit-fp4, bnb-4bit-nf4.
CTXSIFT_MODEL_CACHE_PATH	local.model_cache_path	Custom quantized model storage path.

Remote compression

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_LLM_BASE_URL	remote.base_url	LiteLLM-compatible provider API base URL.
CTXSIFT_LLM_MODEL	remote.model_name	Remote model name identifier (e.g. gpt-4o-mini).
CTXSIFT_LLM_API_KEY	remote.api_key	API Key for remote authentication.
CTXSIFT_LLM_API_VERSION	remote.api_version	Optional provider API version string.
CTXSIFT_LLM_REASONING_MODE	remote.reasoning_mode	Reasoning settings: auto, true, false.

Embeddings

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_MODEL	embedding.model	Sentence Transformers model ID.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_BACKEND	embedding.backend	Execution engine: auto, onnx, torch.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_DEVICE	embedding.device	Embedding hardware device: auto, cpu, cuda.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_DTYPE	embedding.dtype	Embedding model precision.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_ATTN_IMPLEMENTATION	embedding.attn_implementation	Attention mechanism backend.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_MAX_LENGTH	embedding.max_length	Maximum sequence context limit.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_QUERY_PROMPT_NAME	embedding.query_prompt_name	Preset query prompt template.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_QUERY_PROMPT	embedding.query_prompt	Custom query prompt prefix string.
CTXSIFT_EMBEDDING_DOCUMENT_PROMPT_NAME	embedding.document_prompt_name	Preset document prompt template.

Recall search

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_RECALL_DEFAULT_LIMIT	recall.default_limit	Default number of recall results returned.
CTXSIFT_RECALL_LEXICAL_CANDIDATE_LIMIT	recall.lexical_candidate_limit	Max lexical candidate matches queried.
CTXSIFT_RECALL_VECTOR_CANDIDATE_LIMIT	recall.vector_candidate_limit	Max semantic vector candidate matches queried.
CTXSIFT_RECALL_MAX_VECTOR_DISTANCE	recall.max_vector_distance	Cosine distance similarity filter limit.

Daemons

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_DAEMON_ENABLED	daemon.enabled	Enable background serving: true, false.
CTXSIFT_DAEMON_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	daemon.idle_timeout_seconds	Shutdown inactivity window in seconds.
CTXSIFT_DAEMON_STARTUP_TIMEOUT_MS	daemon.startup_timeout_ms	Maximum boot wait time in milliseconds.
CTXSIFT_DAEMON_EMBEDDING_BATCH_WINDOW_MS	daemon.embedding_batch_window_ms	Requests grouping latency window.
CTXSIFT_DAEMON_EMBEDDING_MAX_BATCH_SIZE	daemon.embedding_max_batch_size	Limit of grouped embedding requests.

Retention

Variable	Config Key	Meaning / Usage
CTXSIFT_RETENTION_MAX_AGE_DAYS	retention.max_age_days	Number of days to keep compressed records.