Reference: Configuration

Anvil is configured entirely through environment variables. The following is a reference for the most important variables required to launch and operate an Anvil node.

Variable	Description
GLOBAL_DATABASE_URL	Required. Connection URL for the global Postgres database.
REGIONAL_DATABASE_URL	Required. Connection URL for the regional Postgres database.
REGION	Required. The name of the region this node belongs to.
JWT_SECRET	Required. Secret key for minting and verifying JWTs.
ANVIL_SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY	Required. A 64-character hex-encoded string for AES-256 encryption. CRITICAL: This key is used to encrypt sensitive data at rest. It MUST be a cryptographically secure, 64-character hexadecimal string (representing 32 bytes). Loss of this key will result in permanent data loss. Generate a secure key with: openssl rand -hex 32
CLUSTER_SECRET	A shared secret to authenticate and encrypt inter-node gossip messages.
API_LISTEN_ADDR	The local IP and port for the unified S3 Gateway and gRPC service (e.g., 0.0.0.0:50051).
CLUSTER_LISTEN_ADDR	The local multiaddress for the QUIC P2P listener.
PUBLIC_CLUSTER_ADDRS	Comma-separated list of public-facing multiaddresses for this node.
PUBLIC_API_ADDR	The public-facing address for the gRPC service.
BOOTSTRAP_ADDRS	Comma-separated list of bootstrap peer addresses for joining a cluster.
INIT_CLUSTER	Set to true for the first node in a cluster. Defaults to false.
ENABLE_MDNS	Set to true to enable local peer discovery via mDNS. Defaults to true.
METADATA_CACHE_TTL_SECS	Time-to-live (in seconds) for cached global metadata (buckets, tenants, policies). Defaults to 300 (5 minutes).