Environment variables
Every environment variable the agent reads, with defaults and meaning.
The agent is configured through environment variables. There is no configuration file; this keeps the runtime container immutable and the deployment surface small.
Required
| Variable | Notes |
|---|---|
AGENT_KEY | Authentication key issued by the cloud. Format obs_live_<43 base64url chars>. The cloud stores its hash, never the plaintext. |
CLOUD_SERVER_URL | Base URL of Observer Cloud. Defaults to https://localhost:3000 (development only). Override in every real deployment. |
Required for Prometheus probes
| Variable | Notes |
|---|---|
PROMETHEUS_SERVER_URL | Base URL of the Prometheus the agent should query. Used as the default for every Prometheus metric, overridable per-metric via prometheus_url in the metric's source config. |
Optional Prometheus auth
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
PROMETHEUS_BASIC_AUTH_ENABLED | true | Set to any value other than true to disable. When enabled, the agent sends Authorization: Basic <encoded> on every Prometheus request. |
PROMETHEUS_USERNAME | admin | Basic auth username. |
PROMETHEUS_PASSWORD | empty | Basic auth password. Treat as a secret. |
Dashboard
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
ENABLE_DEBUG_DASHBOARD | true | Set to false to disable the local debug dashboard. |
DEBUG_DASHBOARD_HOST | 0.0.0.0 | Bind address for the dashboard HTTP listener. |
DEBUG_DASHBOARD_PORT | 10101 | Port for the dashboard HTTP listener. |
Logging
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
BROADCAST_LOGS | false | When true, the agent forwards a subset of its log lines to the cloud for surfacing in the agent detail page. PromQL query strings are always redacted to a SHA-256 prefix and length, regardless of this flag. |
LOG_BROADCAST_LEVEL | INFO | Minimum level forwarded when BROADCAST_LOGS=true. One of DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR. |
VERBOSE | false | Local stdout verbosity. |
Local queue
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
BUFFER_PATH | ./observer-agent-buffer.db | Path to the agent's local SQLite write-ahead queue file. |
BUFFER_MAX_ROWS | 10000 | Hard cap on queued pushes. When the queue reaches the cap, oldest entries are evicted to admit new ones. |
Other
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
SKIP_SSL_VERIFICATION | false | Disables TLS verification on cloud-bound requests. Development only. |
NODE_ENV | unset | Affects log formatting. Set to production in production deployments. |
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