Configuration file

nitro_repo save-config --config nitro_repo.toml writes a file with every key at its default. That file is the authoritative reference; this page explains what the keys mean.

Repository and storage settings are not here — they live in Postgres and are edited through the UI, because they change while the server is running.

Where settings come from

Two sources: the file passed to --config, and the environment.

The file wins. If a section is present in the file, the environment is ignored for the whole of that section — the merge happens per top-level section, not per key. So a file containing

[database]
host = "localhost"

means NITRO-REPO_DATABASE_PASSWORD has no effect, because [database] came from the file.

The practical consequence: use one or the other for a given section. Mixing them produces surprises. Docker deployments should have no file at all, which is why a missing --config path is not an error.

Environment variables

The prefix is NITRO-REPO_, with a hyphen. Nested keys are joined with underscores and the whole name is upper case:

NITRO-REPO_DATABASE_HOST=postgres
NITRO-REPO_WEB_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:6742
NITRO-REPO_SESSIONS_DATABASE_LOCATION=/data/sessions.redb
NITRO-REPO_SUGGESTED_LOCAL_STORAGE_PATH=/data/storages/

Caution

A variable with the wrong prefix — NITRO_REPO_…, or none at all — is ignored silently. It is not rejected and nothing is logged, so a typo looks exactly like the setting having no effect.

The hyphen also means most shells cannot export these directly. Docker Compose, systemd’s Environment=, and Kubernetes all set them without trouble.

mode

Debug or Release. Defaults to whichever the binary was built as. Affects logging verbosity and error detail.

[web_server]

Key	Default	What
bind_address	0.0.0.0:6742	Address and port to listen on.
open_api_routes	true	Serve /open-api-doc-raw and /scalar.
max_upload	100MiB	Largest request body accepted.

max_upload takes a size — 100, 100b, 100KiB, 100MiB — or the string unlimited. A bare number is bytes.

Raise it if you publish large artifacts, and remember to raise the limit on any proxy in front: nginx’s client_max_body_size defaults to 1 MiB and rejects the request before Nitro Repo sees it.

[web_server.tls]

Optional. Terminate TLS in the server rather than upstream.

Key	What
private_key	Path to the private key.
certificate_chain	Path to the full chain.

[web_server.tls]
private_key = "/etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem"
certificate_chain = "/etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem"

[database]

Postgres. Required — the server does not start without one.

Key	Default	What
host	localhost	Hostname. May be host:port.
port	5432	Port. Taken from host if not set here.
user	postgres	Role to connect as.
password	password	Its password.
database	nitro_repo	Database name. Also accepted as name.

The database and role must already exist; the schema does not, and migrations run at startup.

nitro_repo config --config nitro_repo.toml database prompts for these and tests the connection before writing, which catches a typo now rather than at the next start.

[site]

Key	Default	What
app_url	none	The URL users type. Set this.
name	Nitro Repo	Shown in the UI.
description	An Open Source artifact manager.	Shown in the UI.
is_https	false	Marks session cookies secure.

Set app_url to the externally reachable URL. Anything that must hand a client an absolute URL reads it, and npm’s browser login refuses to run without one — it answers npm login with a 503 rather than issuing a link that only resolves inside your network.

Set is_https = true whenever users reach the instance over HTTPS, including when TLS is terminated by a proxy.

[sessions]

Browser sessions, kept in an embedded database rather than in Postgres.

Key	Default	What
lifespan	86400	Seconds a session lasts. One day.
cleanup_interval	3600	Seconds between sweeps of expired sessions.
database_location	./sessions.redb	Path to the session database.

database_location is relative to the working directory. In a container that is usually not a volume, so leaving it alone means every user is signed out whenever the container is replaced. Put it somewhere persistent.

[security]

Key	Default	What
allow_basic_without_tokens	false	Declared but not read. Has no effect today.
trust_forwarded_host	false	Read the request host from X-Forwarded-Host.

allow_basic_without_tokens appears in the generated file and in this table because it is in the config struct, but nothing consults it. To require tokens for deploys, use the per-repository must_use_auth_token_for_push push rule instead — that one is enforced.

trust_forwarded_host only matters if you use custom domains. Requests are normally routed by their Host; turn this on if your reverse proxy replaces Host with its own and sends the original in X-Forwarded-Host. Leave it off otherwise — any client can send that header, so trusting it without a proxy in front that overwrites it lets a caller pick which repository their request reaches.

[security.password_rules]

Key	Default
min_length	8
require_uppercase	true
require_lowercase	true
require_number	true
require_symbol	true

Applied when a password is set or changed. Removing the section entirely disables the checks.

[staging]

Key	Default	What
staging_dir	./staging	Scratch space for in-progress uploads.
time_till_cleanup	3600	Seconds before an abandoned upload is swept.

staging_dir is relative to the working directory, with the same container caveat as the session database.

[email]

Optional. Only needed for password-reset emails; without it, that endpoint has nowhere to send anything and an administrator sets passwords directly instead.

Key	What
username	SMTP username.
password	SMTP password.
host	SMTP host.
encryption	NONE, StartTLS or TLS.
from	Envelope sender.
reply_to	Optional reply-to.

suggested_local_storage_path

A path pre-filled into the “create a storage” form. Purely a convenience, so an operator does not have to know where the data volume is mounted.

[log]

Logging and OpenTelemetry. The generated file has the full structure; the shape is:

[log.levels]
default = "Info"

[log.levels.others]
nitro_repo = "Debug"
sqlx = "Warn"

[log.loggers.console]
type = "Console"

[log.loggers.console.config]
pretty = false
include_time = true

Three loggers are configured by default — console, file (a daily rolling file) and app (OTLP, disabled) — and any of them can be removed. Levels are Trace, Debug, Info, Warn, Error, with per-target overrides under others.

[log.metrics] configures OTLP metrics export, off by default.

A minimal file

Everything else has a working default:

[database]
host = "localhost"
port = 5432
user = "nitro_repo"
password = "…"
database = "nitro_repo"

[site]
app_url = "https://repo.example.com"
is_https = true

[sessions]
database_location = "/var/lib/nitro_repo/sessions.redb"

[staging]
staging_dir = "/var/lib/nitro_repo/staging"