appsettings & Layers

Zenvara is configured with two YAML layers:

• appsettings.yaml — the base, in source control.
• appsettings.user.yaml — host-specific overrides, gitignored, optional.

Last-write wins, key by key. Every section has sensible defaults; touch a section when you have a reason.

Sections you’ll actually touch

Section	Purpose
Kestrel	Bind address/port, MaxRequestBodySize.
Storage	Backend (File / S3 / Minio), directory, per-bucket overrides. See Storage Backends.
StorageBuckets	Nested per-entity bucket tree — Path, GitTracked, Retention, Archive inherit from ancestor groups.
Cache	Ephemeral cache directory (safe to wipe).
Auth	Providers, secrets, role definitions. See Authentication.
Git	Git-backed config versioning and branch staging. See Git Versioning.
LocalOverlay	No-git developer scratchpad (sibling of Git:, mutually exclusive with it).
Serilog	Log sinks: console, file, ELK / Loki / Splunk.
Flow	Flow-engine tuning.

Hot-reload vs restart-required

Most entity files (flows, connections, environments) hot-reload — the platform picks up changes on the next request, no restart needed. A few config sections require a restart, notably Git: — enabling or changing git versioning is not a hot-reload operation.

A minimal appsettings.user.yaml

# Kestrel binds loopback only by default (http://localhost:5000) — omit this
# block unless you need to expose the port beyond localhost. Reaching it from
# another host requires the wildcard bind below (front it with a reverse proxy
# and keep Auth.Enabled: true, or the security audit flags NET-003).
Kestrel:
  Endpoints:
    Http:
      Url: "http://0.0.0.0:5000"

Storage:
  StorageType: File
  Directory: "/var/lib/zenvara/data"

Auth:
  Enabled: true

Serilog:
  MinimumLevel: Information

Connections, environments, and other entities

Note that connections and environments are not in appsettings — they live in storage as YAML entities under config/connections/{name}.connection.yaml and config/environments/{name}.environment.yaml. Folios, skills, and templates live under knowledge/; auth, policies, and teams at the storage top level. appsettings configures the platform; storage entities configure what the platform runs.

The full schema for every section is covered above, plus in the CLI’s own zenvara config-reference output, which is generated from the same embedded defaults and never drifts from what a given build actually ships.