Configuration¶

Argus has two configuration tiers:

Bootstrap env vars (this page) — read at process start. All names use the ARGUS_ prefix.
Runtime config (Admin settings) — DB-backed, editable from the UI without redeploy. Covers GitHub OAuth, SMTP, retention, demo project, and feature flags.

For overlap (e.g. SMTP set both via env and via DB), the DB row wins; env values are seed defaults.

The truth source for what each variable does is backend/backend/config.py (Pydantic Settings class) plus a few os.environ.get lookups in backend/backend/app.py and services/secrets.py for the variables that are read outside the Settings model.

Required-ish¶

Argus boots with safe development defaults, but in production you must set:

Variable	Notes
`ARGUS_JWT_SECRET`	Session-signing key. ≥32 bytes enforced when `ARGUS_ENV=prod`. Generate with `python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(48))"`.
`ARGUS_ENV`	`prod` enables strict checks (long secret, hard-fail on misconfig). Default `dev`.
`ARGUS_BASE_URL`	Public URL used in email links and CORS allow-list. Default `http://localhost:5173`.
`ARGUS_CONFIG_KEY`	Fernet key for encrypting runtime-config secrets in the DB. Falls back to `ARGUS_JWT_SECRET` if unset, but you should set it explicitly so JWT rotation never invalidates encrypted config.

Database¶

Variable	Default	Notes
`ARGUS_DB_URL`	`sqlite+aiosqlite:///<backend>/data/argus.db`	Async SQLAlchemy URL; for Postgres: `postgresql+asyncpg://user:pw@host/db`
`ARGUS_DB_POOL_SIZE`	per-dialect default	Compose sets 10
`ARGUS_DB_POOL_MAX_OVERFLOW`	per-dialect default	Compose sets 15
`ARGUS_DB_POOL_TIMEOUT`	per-dialect default
`ARGUS_DB_POOL_RECYCLE`	per-dialect default

SMTP (also editable in Admin UI)¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_SMTP_HOST`	empty → emails print to stdout
`ARGUS_SMTP_PORT`	587
`ARGUS_SMTP_USER` / `ARGUS_SMTP_PASS`	empty
`ARGUS_SMTP_FROM`	`noreply@argus.local`
`ARGUS_SMTP_USE_TLS`	true

Notifications¶

Variable	Notes
`ARGUS_FEISHU_WEBHOOK`	Optional Feishu bot webhook URL; receives notification cards. Read by `notifications/watchdog.py` and registered into `app.state.notification_channels`.

GitHub OAuth (also editable in Admin UI)¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_GITHUB_OAUTH_ENABLED`	false
`ARGUS_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID`	empty
`ARGUS_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`	empty

These env vars are seed defaults; the runtime source of truth is the DB row read via backend.api.oauth._get_github_oauth_state(db). Edit in Settings → Admin → OAuth (GitHub).

Retention (also editable in Admin UI)¶

Variable	Default (days)
`ARGUS_RETENTION_SNAPSHOT_DAYS`	7
`ARGUS_RETENTION_LOG_LINE_DAYS`	14
`ARGUS_RETENTION_JOB_EPOCH_DAYS`	30
`ARGUS_RETENTION_EVENT_OTHER_DAYS`	90
`ARGUS_RETENTION_DEMO_DATA_DAYS`	1
`ARGUS_RETENTION_SWEEP_MINUTES`	60 (`0` disables the in-process sweeper)

Summary rows (one per batch and one per job) are never purged.

Guardrails¶

Variable	Default	Notes
`ARGUS_DIVERGENCE_RATIO`	2.0	Fire when val_loss grows by ≥ this over the window
`ARGUS_DIVERGENCE_WINDOW`	3	Consecutive epochs
`ARGUS_IDLE_JOB_THRESHOLD_MIN`	10	Idle when GPU util <5% for this many minutes
`ARGUS_STALL_TIMEOUT_MIN`	15	Mark batch stalled after this much silence
`ARGUS_STALL_CHECK_INTERVAL_S`	120	How often the stall detector runs
`ARGUS_BATCH_DIVERGENCE_CHECK_INTERVAL_S`	60	Same idea for divergence
`ARGUS_ALERTS_ANOMALOUS_LOGIN_ENABLED`	true	Email on login from a new (IP, UA) pair

Backups (SQLite)¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_BACKUP_INTERVAL_H`	6 (`0` disables the loop)
`ARGUS_BACKUP_KEEP_LAST_N`	7

JWT¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_JWT_SECRET`	dev sentinel (rejected in prod)
`ARGUS_JWT_ALGORITHM`	`HS256`
`ARGUS_JWT_ISSUER`	`argus`
`ARGUS_JWT_TTL_SECONDS`	86400 (24 h)

Auth policy¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_LOGIN_MAX_FAILURES`	5
`ARGUS_LOGIN_LOCK_MINUTES`	10
`ARGUS_EMAIL_VERIFY_TTL_HOURS`	24
`ARGUS_PASSWORD_RESET_TTL_MINUTES`	15
`ARGUS_EMAIL_CHANGE_TTL_HOURS`	168 (7 d)
`ARGUS_PASSWORD_MIN_LENGTH`	10

Scaling / process¶

Variable	Default	Notes
`ARGUS_WORKERS`	4	Read by `deploy/entrypoint.sh`; controls `--workers` on uvicorn. Set to 1 for the SQLite dev loop.
`ARGUS_LOCK_DIR`	`/tmp`	Where fcntl advisory locks live for the singleton tasks (retention sweep, backup, watchdog). Override in tests.

Logging¶

Variable	Default
`ARGUS_LOG_LEVEL`	`INFO`

SDK side (read by `argus-reporter`)¶

The SDK reads its own env vars (not the backend's). Listed here for reference:

Variable	Notes
`ARGUS_URL`	Backend URL. Not the same as `ARGUS_BASE_URL` — `ARGUS_BASE_URL` is the backend's view of its own public URL; `ARGUS_URL` is what the SDK posts to.
`ARGUS_TOKEN`	`em_live_…` SDK token
`ARGUS_DISABLE`	`1` makes the SDK a no-op

Note on `ARGUS_CORS_ORIGINS`¶

The shipped deploy/docker-compose.yml and .env.example mention this variable. It is not read by the backend today — _cors_origins() in backend/backend/app.py derives the allow-list from ARGUS_BASE_URL plus hardcoded http://localhost:5173 and http://localhost:8000. The compose entry is a placeholder for a future change.