fleet-memory/hindsight-docs/docs/developer/configuration.md

Configuration

Complete reference for configuring Hindsight services through environment variables.

Hindsight has two services, each with its own configuration prefix:

Service	Prefix	Description
API Service	HINDSIGHT_API_*	Core memory engine
Control Plane	HINDSIGHT_CP_*	Web UI

---

API Service

The API service handles all memory operations (retain, recall, reflect).

Database

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string	pg0 (embedded)
HINDSIGHT_API_MIGRATION_DATABASE_URL	Direct PostgreSQL URL for running migrations, bypassing connection poolers (e.g. PgBouncer). When set, advisory locks and Alembic migrations use this URL instead of DATABASE_URL.	Falls back to DATABASE_URL
HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_SCHEMA	PostgreSQL schema name for tables	public
HINDSIGHT_API_RUN_MIGRATIONS_ON_STARTUP	Run database migrations on API startup	true

If not provided, the server uses embedded pg0 — convenient for development but not recommended for production.

The DATABASE_SCHEMA setting allows you to use a custom PostgreSQL schema instead of the default public schema. This is useful for:

• Multi-database setups where you want Hindsight tables in a dedicated schema
• Hosting platforms (e.g., Supabase) where public schema is reserved or shared
• Organizational preferences for schema naming conventions

# Example: Using a custom schema
export HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/dbname
export HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_SCHEMA=hindsight

Migrations will automatically create the schema if it doesn't exist and create all tables in the configured schema.

Database Connection Pool

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_DB_POOL_MIN_SIZE	Minimum connections in the pool	5
HINDSIGHT_API_DB_POOL_MAX_SIZE	Maximum connections in the pool	100
HINDSIGHT_API_DB_COMMAND_TIMEOUT	PostgreSQL command timeout in seconds	60
HINDSIGHT_API_DB_ACQUIRE_TIMEOUT	Connection acquisition timeout in seconds	30

For high-concurrency workloads, increase DB_POOL_MAX_SIZE. Each concurrent recall/think operation can use 2-4 connections.

To run migrations manually (e.g., before starting the API), use the admin CLI:

# Migrate the base schema plus all discovered tenant schemas
hindsight-admin run-db-migration

# Or migrate a specific schema only:
hindsight-admin run-db-migration --schema tenant_acme

Vector Extension

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_VECTOR_EXTENSION	Vector index algorithm: pgvector, vchord, or pgvectorscale	pgvector

Hindsight supports three PostgreSQL vector extensions:

pgvector (HNSW - default)

• In-memory index using Hierarchical Navigable Small World algorithm
• Works well for most embeddings and dataset sizes
• Fast for small-medium datasets (<10M vectors)
• Higher memory usage for large datasets
• Most widely deployed and supported

pgvectorscale (DiskANN - recommended for scale) ⭐

• Disk-based index using StreamingDiskANN algorithm
• 28x lower p95 latency and 16x higher throughput vs dedicated vector DBs
• 60-75% cost reduction at scale (SSDs cheaper than RAM)
• Superior filtering performance with streaming retrieval model
• Optimized for large datasets (10M+ vectors)
• Supports both pgvectorscale (open source) and pg_diskann (Azure)
• Installation:
  • Open source/self-hosted: CREATE EXTENSION vector; CREATE EXTENSION vectorscale CASCADE;
  • Azure PostgreSQL: CREATE EXTENSION vector; CREATE EXTENSION pg_diskann CASCADE;

vchord (vchordrq)

• Alternative high-performance vector index
• Optimized for high-dimensional embeddings (3000+ dimensions)
• Includes integrated BM25 search capabilities
• Requires vchord extension

When to use pgvectorscale (DiskANN):

• Large datasets (10M+ vectors) ⭐
• Complex filtering requirements
• Cost-sensitive deployments
• Production workloads requiring high throughput
• When disk I/O is not a bottleneck

When to use pgvector (HNSW):

• Small-medium datasets (<10M vectors)
• Maximum query speed when all data fits in memory
• Simple nearest-neighbor queries without filters
• Standard PostgreSQL deployment preference

When to use vchord:

• High-dimensional embeddings (3000+ dimensions)
• Want integrated BM25 search
• Already using vchord for text search

Switching extensions:

If you need to switch from one extension to another:

1. Set HINDSIGHT_API_VECTOR_EXTENSION to your desired extension (pgvector, vchord, or pgvectorscale)
2. If your database has existing data, you'll get an error with migration instructions
3. For empty databases, indexes will be automatically recreated on startup

Learn more:

• HNSW vs. DiskANN comparison
• pgvectorscale GitHub

Text Search Extension

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_TEXT_SEARCH_EXTENSION	Text search backend: native, vchord, or pg_textsearch	native

Hindsight supports three text search backends for BM25 keyword retrieval:

• native: PostgreSQL's built-in full-text search (tsvector + GIN indexes)
• vchord: VectorChord BM25 (bm25vector + BM25 indexes) - requires vchord_bm25 extension
• pg_textsearch: Timescale BM25 (text columns + BM25 indexes) - requires pg_textsearch extension

When to use native:

• Standard PostgreSQL deployment (no extra extensions)
• Simpler setup and wider compatibility
• Works well for most use cases

When to use vchord:

• Already using vchord for vector search (good integration)
• Want better BM25 ranking performance
• Need advanced tokenization (uses llmlingua2 tokenizer)

When to use pg_textsearch:

• Want industry-standard BM25 ranking with better relevance than native PostgreSQL
• Need efficient top-K queries with Block-Max WAND optimization
• Prefer lower memory footprint compared to vchord
• Already using Timescale or have pg_textsearch available

Switching backends:

To switch between backends:

1. Set HINDSIGHT_API_TEXT_SEARCH_EXTENSION to your desired backend (native, vchord, or pg_textsearch)
2. If your database has existing data, you'll get an error with migration instructions
3. For empty databases, the columns/indexes will be automatically recreated on startup

Note: VectorChord uses the llmlingua2 tokenizer for multilingual support, while native and pg_textsearch use PostgreSQL's English tokenizer.

LLM Provider

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER	Provider: openai, openai-codex, claude-code, anthropic, gemini, groq, minimax, ollama, lmstudio, vertexai, bedrock, litellm, volcano, none	openai
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY	API key for LLM provider	-
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL	Model name	gpt-5-mini
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL	Custom LLM endpoint	Provider default
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent LLM requests	32
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_RETRIES	Max retry attempts for LLM API calls	10
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF	Initial retry backoff in seconds (exponential backoff)	1.0
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF	Max retry backoff cap in seconds	60.0
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_TIMEOUT	LLM request timeout in seconds	120
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_GROQ_SERVICE_TIER	Groq service tier: on_demand, flex, auto	auto
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_OPENAI_SERVICE_TIER	OpenAI service tier: flex for 50% cost savings (OpenAI Flex Processing)	None (default)
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_EXTRA_BODY	JSON dict merged into extra_body for all OpenAI-compatible API calls. Useful for custom model servers (e.g., vLLM chat_template_kwargs).	null
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_GEMINI_SAFETY_SETTINGS	JSON-encoded list of {category, threshold} dicts for Gemini/VertexAI content safety filtering	null

Provider Examples

# Groq (recommended for fast inference)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=groq
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=gsk_xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=openai/gpt-oss-20b
# For free tier users: override to on_demand if you get service_tier errors
# export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_GROQ_SERVICE_TIER=on_demand

# OpenAI
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=openai
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=sk-xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=gpt-4o
# Optional: Use Flex Processing for 50% cost savings (with variable latency)
# export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_OPENAI_SERVICE_TIER=flex

# Gemini
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=gemini
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=gemini-2.0-flash

# Anthropic
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=sk-ant-xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-20250514

# Vertex AI (Google Cloud - uses native genai SDK)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=vertexai
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=gemini-2.0-flash-001
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_VERTEXAI_PROJECT_ID=your-gcp-project-id
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_VERTEXAI_REGION=us-central1
# Optional: use ADC (gcloud auth application-default login) or provide service account key:
# export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_VERTEXAI_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY=/path/to/service-account-key.json

# Ollama (local, no API key)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=ollama
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=llama3

# LM Studio (local, no API key)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=lmstudio
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL=http://localhost:1234/v1
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=your-local-model

# OpenAI-compatible endpoint
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=openai
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL=https://your-endpoint.com/v1
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=your-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=your-model-name

# OpenAI Codex (ChatGPT Plus/Pro subscription - uses OAuth, no API key needed)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=openai-codex
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=gpt-5.2-codex
# No API key needed - uses OAuth tokens from ~/.codex/auth.json

# Claude Code (Claude Pro/Max subscription - uses OAuth, no API key needed)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=claude-code
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929
# No API key needed - uses claude auth login credentials

# Volcano Engine (ByteDance - OpenAI-compatible)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=volcano
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=your-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL=https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/v3
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=doubao-pro-32k

# AWS Bedrock (native support - no API key needed, uses AWS credentials)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=bedrock
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=us.amazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret-key
export AWS_REGION_NAME=us-east-1

# LiteLLM (100+ providers via LiteLLM SDK)
# Azure OpenAI via LiteLLM
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=litellm
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=your-azure-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=azure/gpt-4o

# Together AI via LiteLLM
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=litellm
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=your-together-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=together_ai/meta-llama/Llama-3-70b-chat-hf

# No LLM (chunk storage + semantic search only, no API key needed)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=none
# Retain automatically uses chunks mode (no fact extraction)
# Recall works normally (semantic search, BM25, graph retrieval)
# Reflect returns HTTP 400 (requires an LLM)
# Consolidation/observations are disabled

:::tip OpenAI Codex, Claude Code & Vertex AI Setup For detailed setup instructions for OpenAI Codex (ChatGPT Plus/Pro), Claude Code (Claude Pro/Max), and Vertex AI (Google Cloud), see the Models documentation. :::

Per-Operation LLM Configuration

Different memory operations have different requirements. Retain (fact extraction) benefits from models with strong structured output capabilities, while Reflect (reasoning/response generation) can use lighter, faster models. Configure separate LLM models for each operation to optimize for cost and performance.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_PROVIDER	LLM provider for retain operations	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_API_KEY	API key for retain LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MODEL	Model for retain operations	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_BASE_URL	Base URL for retain LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent requests for retain	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_RETRIES	Max retries for retain	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_RETRIES
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF	Initial backoff for retain retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF	Max backoff cap for retain retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_TIMEOUT	Timeout for retain requests (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_TIMEOUT
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_PROVIDER	LLM provider for reflect operations	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_API_KEY	API key for reflect LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_MODEL	Model for reflect operations	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_BASE_URL	Base URL for reflect LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent requests for reflect	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_MAX_RETRIES	Max retries for reflect	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_RETRIES
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF	Initial backoff for reflect retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF	Max backoff cap for reflect retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_TIMEOUT	Timeout for reflect requests (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_TIMEOUT
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_PROVIDER	LLM provider for observation consolidation	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_API_KEY	API key for consolidation LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_MODEL	Model for consolidation operations	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_BASE_URL	Base URL for consolidation LLM	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_BASE_URL
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent requests for consolidation	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_MAX_RETRIES	Max retries for consolidation	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_RETRIES
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF	Initial backoff for consolidation retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF	Max backoff cap for consolidation retries (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_TIMEOUT	Timeout for consolidation requests (seconds)	Falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_TIMEOUT

:::tip When to Use Per-Operation Config

• Retain: Use models with strong structured output (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude) for accurate fact extraction
• Reflect: Use faster/cheaper models (e.g., GPT-4o-mini, Groq) for reasoning and response generation
• Recall: Does not use LLM (pure retrieval), so no configuration needed :::

Example: Separate Models for Retain and Reflect

# Default LLM (used as fallback)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=openai
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=sk-xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=gpt-4o

# Use GPT-4o for retain (strong structured output)
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MODEL=gpt-4o

# Use faster/cheaper model for reflect
export HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_PROVIDER=groq
export HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_API_KEY=gsk_xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_LLM_MODEL=llama-3.3-70b-versatile

Example: Tuning Retry Behavior for Rate-Limited APIs

# For Anthropic with tight rate limits (10k output tokens/minute)
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=sk-ant-xxxxxxxxxxxx
export HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-20250514

# Reduce concurrent requests for retain to avoid rate limits
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_CONCURRENT=3

# Fail faster with fewer retries
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_RETRIES=3

# Or increase backoff times to wait out rate limit windows
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_INITIAL_BACKOFF=2.0  # Start at 2s instead of 1s
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_LLM_MAX_BACKOFF=120.0    # Cap at 2min instead of 1min

Embeddings

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER	Provider: local, tei, openai, cohere, litellm, or litellm-sdk	local
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_MODEL	Model for local provider	BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_TRUST_REMOTE_CODE	Allow loading models with custom code (security risk, disabled by default)	false
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_FORCE_CPU	Force CPU mode for local embeddings (avoids MPS/XPC issues on macOS)	false
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_TEI_URL	TEI server URL	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI API key (falls back to HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_MODEL	OpenAI embedding model	text-embedding-3-small
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_BASE_URL	Custom base URL for OpenAI-compatible API (e.g., Azure OpenAI)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_API_KEY	Cohere API key for embeddings	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_MODEL	Cohere embedding model	embed-english-v3.0
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_BASE_URL	Custom base URL for Cohere-compatible API (e.g., Azure-hosted)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_API_BASE	LiteLLM proxy base URL for embeddings	http://localhost:4000
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_API_KEY	LiteLLM proxy API key for embeddings (optional, depends on proxy config)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_MODEL	LiteLLM embedding model (use provider prefix, e.g., cohere/embed-english-v3.0)	text-embedding-3-small
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_API_KEY	LiteLLM SDK API key for direct embedding provider access	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_MODEL	LiteLLM SDK embedding model (use provider prefix, e.g., cohere/embed-english-v3.0)	cohere/embed-english-v3.0
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_API_BASE	Custom base URL for LiteLLM SDK embeddings (optional)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_OUTPUT_DIMENSIONS	Optional output embedding dimensions (provider-dependent, e.g., 768 for Gemini embedding models)	-

# Local (default) - uses SentenceTransformers
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=local
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_MODEL=BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5

# Local with custom model requiring trust_remote_code
# WARNING: Only enable trust_remote_code for models you trust (security risk)
# export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_MODEL=your-custom-model
# export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_TRUST_REMOTE_CODE=true

# OpenAI - cloud-based embeddings
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=openai
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-xxxxxxxxxxxx  # or reuses HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_MODEL=text-embedding-3-small  # 1536 dimensions

# Azure OpenAI - embeddings via Azure endpoint
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=openai
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_KEY=your-azure-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_MODEL=text-embedding-3-small
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://your-resource.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/your-deployment

# TEI - HuggingFace Text Embeddings Inference (recommended for production)
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=tei
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_TEI_URL=http://localhost:8080

# Cohere - cloud-based embeddings
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=cohere
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_API_KEY=your-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_MODEL=embed-english-v3.0  # 1024 dimensions

# Azure-hosted Cohere - embeddings via custom endpoint
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=cohere
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_API_KEY=your-azure-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_MODEL=embed-english-v3.0
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_BASE_URL=https://your-azure-cohere-endpoint.com

# LiteLLM proxy - unified gateway for multiple providers
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=litellm
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_API_BASE=http://localhost:4000
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_API_KEY=your-litellm-key  # optional
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_MODEL=text-embedding-3-small  # or cohere/embed-english-v3.0

# LiteLLM SDK - direct API access without proxy server (recommended)
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=litellm-sdk
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_API_KEY=your-provider-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_MODEL=cohere/embed-english-v3.0
# Optional: request a specific output dimension when the provider supports it
# export HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_OUTPUT_DIMENSIONS=768

# Supported LiteLLM SDK embedding providers:
# - cohere/embed-english-v3.0 (1024 dimensions)
# - openai/text-embedding-3-small (1536 dimensions)
# - together_ai/togethercomputer/m2-bert-80M-8k-retrieval
# - huggingface/sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2
# - voyage/voyage-2

Embedding Dimensions

Hindsight automatically detects the embedding dimension from the model at startup and adjusts the database schema accordingly. The default model (BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5) produces 384-dimensional vectors, while OpenAI models produce 1536 or 3072 dimensions.

For litellm-sdk, if you set HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LITELLM_SDK_OUTPUT_DIMENSIONS, startup uses that output size when the underlying provider supports LiteLLM's dimensions parameter (otherwise behavior is unchanged). The same dimension-change rules below apply.

:::warning Dimension Changes Once memories are stored, you cannot change the embedding dimension without losing data. If you need to switch to a model with different dimensions:

1. Empty database: The schema is adjusted automatically on startup
2. Existing data: Either delete all memories first, or use a model with matching dimensions

Supported OpenAI embedding dimensions:

• text-embedding-3-small: 1536 dimensions
• text-embedding-3-large: 3072 dimensions
• text-embedding-ada-002: 1536 dimensions (legacy) :::

Reranker

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER	Provider: local, tei, cohere, zeroentropy, flashrank, litellm, litellm-sdk, jina-mlx, or rrf	local
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_MODEL	Model for local provider	cross-encoder/ms-marco-MiniLM-L-6-v2
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent local reranking (prevents CPU thrashing under load)	4
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_TRUST_REMOTE_CODE	Allow loading models with custom code (security risk, disabled by default)	false
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_FORCE_CPU	Force CPU mode for local reranker (avoids MPS/XPC issues on macOS)	false
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_FP16	Half-precision (FP16) inference for the local reranker. 27–36% faster on MPS; quality-identical. Disabled by default to avoid regressions on non-MPS deployments — some CPUs lack native FP16 support.	false
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_BUCKET_BATCHING	Sort pairs by token length before batching to reduce padding waste. 36–54% faster across models; quality-identical by construction.	false
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_BATCH_SIZE	Batch size for local reranker predict(). Optimal value varies by hardware and model (smaller batches can outperform larger ones on MPS).	32
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_TEI_URL	TEI server URL	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_TEI_BATCH_SIZE	Batch size for TEI reranking	128
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_TEI_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent TEI reranking requests	8
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_API_KEY	Cohere API key for reranking	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_MODEL	Cohere rerank model	rerank-english-v3.0
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_BASE_URL	Custom base URL for Cohere-compatible API (e.g., Azure-hosted)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_API_BASE	LiteLLM proxy base URL for reranking	http://localhost:4000
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_API_KEY	LiteLLM proxy API key for reranking (optional, depends on proxy config)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_MODEL	LiteLLM proxy rerank model (use provider prefix, e.g., cohere/rerank-english-v3.0)	cohere/rerank-english-v3.0
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_API_KEY	LiteLLM SDK API key for direct reranking (no proxy needed)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_MODEL	LiteLLM SDK rerank model (e.g., deepinfra/Qwen3-reranker-8B)	cohere/rerank-english-v3.0
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_API_BASE	Custom API base URL for LiteLLM SDK (optional)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_MAX_TOKENS_PER_DOC	Truncate documents to this many tokens before sending to the reranker (applies to both litellm and litellm-sdk). Use for models with small context windows (e.g. set to 900 for a 1024-token limit model). Unset by default (no truncation).	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_API_KEY	ZeroEntropy API key for reranking	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_MODEL	ZeroEntropy rerank model (zerank-2, zerank-2-small)	zerank-2
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_BASE_URL	Custom base URL for ZeroEntropy-compatible API (e.g., mock server, proxy, or self-hosted deployment)	https://api.zeroentropy.dev
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_FLASHRANK_MODEL	FlashRank model for fast CPU-based reranking	ms-marco-MiniLM-L-12-v2
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_FLASHRANK_CACHE_DIR	Cache directory for FlashRank models	System default
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_JINA_MLX_MODEL_PATH	Local path to downloaded jina-reranker-v3-mlx model (auto-downloads from HuggingFace if unset)	-

# Local (default) - uses SentenceTransformers CrossEncoder
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=local
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_MODEL=cross-encoder/ms-marco-MiniLM-L-6-v2

# Local with custom model requiring trust_remote_code (e.g., jina-reranker-v2)
# WARNING: Only enable trust_remote_code for models you trust (security risk)
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=local
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_MODEL=jinaai/jina-reranker-v2-base-multilingual
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_TRUST_REMOTE_CODE=true

# TEI - for high-performance inference
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=tei
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_TEI_URL=http://localhost:8081

# Cohere - cloud-based reranking
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=cohere
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_API_KEY=your-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_MODEL=rerank-english-v3.0

# Azure-hosted Cohere - reranking via custom endpoint
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=cohere
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_API_KEY=your-azure-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_MODEL=rerank-english-v3.0
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_COHERE_BASE_URL=https://your-azure-cohere-endpoint.com

# ZeroEntropy - cloud-based reranking (state-of-the-art accuracy)
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=zeroentropy
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_API_KEY=your-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_MODEL=zerank-2  # or zerank-2-small
# export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_ZEROENTROPY_BASE_URL=https://your-custom-endpoint.com  # optional

# LiteLLM proxy - unified gateway for multiple reranking providers (requires running LiteLLM proxy server)
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=litellm
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_API_BASE=http://localhost:4000
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_API_KEY=your-litellm-key  # optional
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_MODEL=cohere/rerank-english-v3.0  # or voyage/rerank-2, together_ai/...

# LiteLLM SDK - direct API access without proxy (recommended for simplicity)
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=litellm-sdk
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_API_KEY=your-deepinfra-api-key
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LITELLM_SDK_MODEL=deepinfra/Qwen3-reranker-8B  # or cohere/rerank-english-v3.0, etc.

# Jina MLX - Apple Silicon native reranking (no GPU/cloud required)
# Model (~1.2 GB) is downloaded automatically from HuggingFace Hub on first use.
export HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER=jina-mlx

LiteLLM Proxy vs SDK

• litellm: Requires running a separate LiteLLM proxy server. Good for centralized configuration, rate limiting, and caching.
• litellm-sdk: Direct API access without proxy. Simpler setup, lower latency, fewer infrastructure components.

Both support the same providers:

• Cohere (cohere/rerank-english-v3.0, cohere/rerank-multilingual-v3.0)
• DeepInfra (deepinfra/Qwen3-reranker-8B, deepinfra/bge-reranker-v2-m3)
• Together AI (together_ai/Salesforce/Llama-Rank-V1)
• HuggingFace (huggingface/BAAI/bge-reranker-v2-m3)
• Voyage AI (voyage/rerank-2)
• Jina AI (jina_ai/jina-reranker-v2)
• AWS Bedrock (bedrock/...)

Jina MLX (Apple Silicon)

The jina-mlx provider uses jinaai/jina-reranker-v3-mlx, optimized for Apple Silicon. The model (~1.2 GB) is downloaded from HuggingFace Hub automatically on first startup and cached locally.

:::note License jina-reranker-v3-mlx is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. Contact Jina AI for commercial usage. :::

Authentication

By default, Hindsight runs without authentication. For production deployments, enable API key authentication using the built-in tenant extension:

# Enable the built-in API key authentication
export HINDSIGHT_API_TENANT_EXTENSION=hindsight_api.extensions.builtin.tenant:ApiKeyTenantExtension
export HINDSIGHT_API_TENANT_API_KEY=your-secret-api-key

When enabled, all requests must include the API key in the Authorization header:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your-secret-api-key" \
  http://localhost:8888/v1/default/banks

Requests without a valid API key receive a 401 Unauthorized response.

:::tip Custom Authentication For advanced authentication (JWT, OAuth, multi-tenant schemas), implement a custom TenantExtension. See the Extensions documentation for details. :::

Server

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_HOST	Bind address	0.0.0.0
HINDSIGHT_API_PORT	Server port	8888
HINDSIGHT_API_BASE_PATH	Base path for API when behind reverse proxy (e.g., /hindsight)	"" (root)
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKERS	Number of uvicorn worker processes	1
HINDSIGHT_API_LOG_LEVEL	Log level: debug, info, warning, error	info
HINDSIGHT_API_LOG_FORMAT	Log format: text or json (structured logging for cloud platforms)	text
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED	Enable MCP server at /mcp/{bank_id}/	true

Retrieval

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_GRAPH_RETRIEVER	Graph retrieval algorithm	link_expansion
HINDSIGHT_API_RECALL_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent recall operations per worker (backpressure)	32
HINDSIGHT_API_RECALL_CONNECTION_BUDGET	Max concurrent DB connections per recall operation	4
HINDSIGHT_API_RECALL_MAX_QUERY_TOKENS	Maximum token length of a recall query; requests exceeding this limit are rejected with HTTP 400	500
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_MAX_CANDIDATES	Max candidates to rerank per recall (RRF pre-filters the rest)	300
HINDSIGHT_API_MENTAL_MODEL_REFRESH_CONCURRENCY	Max concurrent mental model refreshes	8
HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_MENTAL_MODEL_HISTORY	Track history of content changes to each mental model (previous content + timestamp). Disable to reduce storage if audit trails are not needed.	true

Graph Retrieval Algorithm

• link_expansion (default): Fast graph expansion from semantic seeds via entity co-occurrence, semantic kNN, and causal links. Target latency under 100ms.

Retain

Controls the retain (memory ingestion) pipeline.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MAX_COMPLETION_TOKENS	Max completion tokens for fact extraction LLM calls	64000
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_CHUNK_SIZE	Max characters per chunk for fact extraction. Larger chunks extract fewer LLM calls but may lose context.	3000
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE	Fact extraction mode: concise, verbose, verbatim, chunks, or custom	concise
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MISSION	What this bank should pay attention to during extraction. Steers the LLM without replacing the extraction rules — works alongside any extraction mode.	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_CUSTOM_INSTRUCTIONS	Full prompt override for fact extraction (only used when mode is custom). Replaces built-in extraction rules entirely.	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACT_CAUSAL_LINKS	Extract causal relationships between facts	true
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_BATCH_ENABLED	Use LLM Batch API for fact extraction (50% cost savings, only with async operations)	false
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MAX_CONCURRENT	Max concurrent retain DB phases (HNSW reads + writes). Limits I/O contention during high-concurrency ingestion.	4
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_BATCH_TOKENS	Max characters per sub-batch for async retain auto-splitting	10000
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_ENTITY_LOOKUP	Entity lookup method during retain: full (exact match) or trigram (fuzzy trigram matching)	trigram
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_DEFAULT_STRATEGY	Default retain strategy name. When set, all retain calls without an explicit strategy parameter use this strategy.	-
HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_BATCH_POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS	Batch API polling interval in seconds	60

Entity labels (entity_labels) and free-form entity extraction (entities_allow_free_form) are configured per bank via the bank config API, not as global environment variables — each bank can have its own controlled vocabulary. See Entity Labels for details.

Customizing retain: when to use what

There are five levels of customization for the retain pipeline. Start with the simplest that covers your needs:

Goal	Use
Steer what topics to focus on or deprioritize	HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MISSION
Extract more detail per fact	HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=verbose
Store chunks as-is, LLM extracts metadata	HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=verbatim
Store chunks as-is, zero LLM cost	HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=chunks
Completely replace the extraction rules	HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=custom + HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_CUSTOM_INSTRUCTIONS

HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MISSION — steer extraction without replacing it (recommended starting point)

Tell the bank what to pay attention to during extraction, in plain language. The mission is injected into the extraction prompt alongside the built-in rules — it narrows focus without replacing the underlying logic. Works with any extraction mode (concise, verbose, verbatim, custom). Ignored in chunks mode.

export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_MISSION="Focus on technical decisions, architecture choices, and team member expertise. Deprioritize social or personal information."

HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=verbose — more detail per fact

Use when you need richer facts with full context, relationships, and verbosity. Slower and uses more tokens than concise.

HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=verbatim — store chunks as-is

Each chunk is stored as a single memory unit with its original text preserved exactly — no summarization or rewriting. The LLM still runs to extract entities, temporal information, and location so the chunk is fully indexed and retrievable. Useful for RAG-style indexing, document ingestion pipelines, or benchmarks where you want the original text in memory rather than LLM-generated summaries.

export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=verbatim

retain_strategies / retain_default_strategy — per-call extraction strategy

Named strategies let you ingest different content types into the same bank using different extraction settings. A strategy is a set of hierarchical field overrides applied on top of the resolved bank config.

Any field in the hierarchical config can be overridden per strategy, including retain_extraction_mode, retain_chunk_size, entity_labels, entities_allow_free_form, retain_mission, etc.

Configure strategies via the bank config API:

{
  "retain_default_strategy": "conversations",
  "retain_strategies": {
    "conversations": {
      "retain_extraction_mode": "concise",
      "retain_chunk_size": 3000
    },
    "documents": {
      "retain_extraction_mode": "chunks",
      "retain_chunk_size": 800,
      "entity_labels": null,
      "entities_allow_free_form": false
    }
  }
}

Then specify the strategy at retain time:

# Uses default strategy ("conversations")
client.retain(bank_id, items=[{"content": "Alice joined the team today"}])

# Explicitly use document strategy
client.retain(bank_id, items=[{"content": "...document text..."}], strategy="documents")

If no strategy is specified in a retain call, retain_default_strategy is used. If neither is set, the bank/global config applies directly.

HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=chunks — zero LLM cost

Each chunk is stored as-is with no LLM call whatsoever. No entity extraction, no temporal indexing — only embeddings are generated for semantic search. User-provided entities passed via RetainContent.entities are the sole source of entity data. Use when ingestion speed and cost matter more than structured metadata.

export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=chunks

HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=custom + HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_CUSTOM_INSTRUCTIONS — full control

Replaces the built-in selectivity rules entirely. The structural parts of the prompt (output format, temporal handling, coreference resolution) remain intact — only the extraction guidelines are replaced.

Use this when retain_mission isn't sufficient and you need strict inclusion/exclusion logic.

export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_EXTRACTION_MODE=custom
export HINDSIGHT_API_RETAIN_CUSTOM_INSTRUCTIONS="ONLY extract facts that are:
✅ Technical decisions and their rationale
✅ Architecture patterns and design choices
✅ Performance metrics and benchmarks

DO NOT extract:
❌ Greetings or social conversation
❌ Process chatter (\"let me check\", \"one moment\")
❌ Anything that would not be useful in 6 months"

File Processing

Configuration for the file upload and conversion pipeline (used by POST /v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/files/retain).

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_FILE_UPLOAD_API	Enable the file upload API endpoint	true
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER	Server-side default parser or fallback chain (comma-separated, e.g. iris,markitdown)	markitdown
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_ALLOWLIST	Comma-separated list of parsers clients are allowed to request. If not set, all registered parsers are allowed.	—
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_CONVERSION_MAX_BATCH_SIZE	Max files per upload request	10
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_CONVERSION_MAX_BATCH_SIZE_MB	Max total upload size per request (MB)	100
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_DELETE_AFTER_RETAIN	Delete stored files after memory extraction completes	true

Parser selection

Clients can override the server default by passing parser in the request body of POST /v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/files/retain. Both the server default and the per-request field accept a single parser name or an ordered fallback chain — each parser is tried in sequence until one succeeds.

# Server default: try iris first, fall back to markitdown if iris fails
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER=iris,markitdown

# Restrict what clients may request (optional — defaults to all registered parsers)
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_ALLOWLIST=markitdown,iris

// Per-request override (in the JSON body of the file retain endpoint)
{
  "parser": "iris",
  "files_metadata": [
    { "document_id": "report" },
    { "document_id": "fallback_doc", "parser": ["iris", "markitdown"] }
  ]
}

Clients that request a parser not in the allowlist receive HTTP 400.

Parser: markitdown (default)

Local file-to-markdown conversion using Microsoft's markitdown. No external service required.

Supported formats: PDF, DOCX, DOC, PPTX, PPT, XLSX, XLS, images (JPG, PNG — OCR), audio (MP3, WAV — transcription), HTML, TXT, MD, CSV.

Parser: iris

Cloud-based extraction via Vectorize Iris. Higher quality extraction for complex documents, powered by a remote AI service.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_IRIS_TOKEN	Vectorize API token	—
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_IRIS_ORG_ID	Vectorize organization ID	—

Supported formats: PDF, DOCX, DOC, PPTX, PPT, XLSX, XLS, images (JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, WEBP), HTML, TXT, MD, CSV.

# Use iris as the only parser
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER=iris
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_IRIS_TOKEN=your-vectorize-token
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER_IRIS_ORG_ID=your-org-id

# Or: try iris first, fall back to markitdown if iris fails or rejects the file type
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_PARSER=iris,markitdown

# Increase batch limits for large file imports
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_CONVERSION_MAX_BATCH_SIZE=20
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_CONVERSION_MAX_BATCH_SIZE_MB=500

# Keep files after processing (useful for debugging or re-processing)
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_DELETE_AFTER_RETAIN=false

File Storage

Files uploaded via the file retain API are stored in an object storage backend before conversion. Choose the backend that fits your infrastructure.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE	Storage backend: native, s3, gcs, or azure	native

Native (PostgreSQL)

Files are stored as BYTEA in the file_storage table. No additional infrastructure required. Suitable for development and small deployments.

# Native storage is the default — no additional configuration needed
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=native

S3 / S3-Compatible

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET	S3 bucket name	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_REGION	AWS region	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ENDPOINT	Custom endpoint URL (for S3-compatible stores like MinIO, Cloudflare R2)	AWS default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID	AWS access key ID	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	AWS secret access key	-

# AWS S3
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=s3
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET=my-hindsight-files
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_REGION=us-east-1
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

# S3-compatible (MinIO, Cloudflare R2, etc.)
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=s3
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET=my-bucket
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ENDPOINT=https://your-minio.example.com
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=minioadmin
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=minioadmin

Google Cloud Storage

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_GCS_BUCKET	GCS bucket name	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_GCS_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY	Path to service account JSON key file	ADC if not set

export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=gcs
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_GCS_BUCKET=my-hindsight-files
# Optional: use service account key file (otherwise falls back to ADC)
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_GCS_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY=/path/to/key.json

Azure Blob Storage

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_CONTAINER	Azure container name	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_ACCOUNT_NAME	Azure storage account name	-
HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY	Azure storage account key	-

export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=azure
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_CONTAINER=hindsight-files
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_ACCOUNT_NAME=mystorageaccount
export HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY=base64encodedkey==

Storage Backend Comparison

Backend	Best For	Notes
native	Development, small deployments	No extra infrastructure, stored in PostgreSQL
s3	Production, AWS deployments	Works with any S3-compatible store
gcs	Production, GCP deployments	Supports ADC for keyless auth
azure	Production, Azure deployments	Uses account key auth

:::tip Production Recommendation For production deployments, use s3, gcs, or azure to avoid storing large binary files in your PostgreSQL database. Set HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_DELETE_AFTER_RETAIN=true (the default) to delete files after memory extraction, which minimizes storage costs. :::

Observations (Experimental)

Observations are consolidated knowledge synthesized from facts.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_OBSERVATIONS	Enable observation consolidation	true
HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_OBSERVATION_HISTORY	Track history of changes to each observation (previous content + timestamp). Disable to reduce storage if audit trails are not needed.	true
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_BATCH_SIZE	Memories to load per batch (internal optimization)	50
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_MAX_TOKENS	Max tokens for recall when finding related observations during consolidation	1024
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_LLM_BATCH_SIZE	Number of facts sent to the LLM in a single consolidation call. Higher values reduce LLM calls and improve throughput at the cost of larger prompts. Set to 1 to disable batching. Configurable per bank.	8
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_SOURCE_FACTS_MAX_TOKENS	Total token budget for source facts included with observations in the consolidation prompt. -1 = unlimited. Configurable per bank.	-1
HINDSIGHT_API_CONSOLIDATION_SOURCE_FACTS_MAX_TOKENS_PER_OBSERVATION	Per-observation token cap for source facts in the consolidation prompt. Each observation independently gets at most this many tokens of source facts. -1 = unlimited. Configurable per bank.	256
HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION	What this bank should synthesise into durable observations. Replaces the built-in consolidation rules — leave unset to use the server default.	-
HINDSIGHT_API_MAX_OBSERVATIONS_PER_SCOPE	Maximum number of observations allowed per tag scope. When the limit is reached, consolidation will only update or delete existing observations — no new ones are created. Applies per tag scope (e.g., per-tag when using per_tag observation scopes). Observations with no tags are not subject to this limit. -1 = unlimited. Configurable per bank.	-1

Customizing observations: when to use what

Goal	Use
Default behavior: durable specific facts, no ephemeral state	Leave unset
Change what observations are for this bank (different shape, different purpose)	HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION

HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION — redefine what this bank synthesises

By default, observations are durable, specific facts synthesized from memories — the kind of knowledge that stays true over time (preferences, skills, relationships, recurring patterns). Ephemeral state is filtered out. Contradictions are tracked with temporal markers.

Set HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION to replace this definition entirely. Write a plain-language description of what observations should be for your use case. The LLM will use this instead of the default rules when deciding what to create or update. Leave it unset to keep the server default.

:::tip When to use observations_mission Use it when the default durable-knowledge behavior doesn't match your use case. Common scenarios:

• You want broader event summaries rather than isolated facts
• You want observations grouped by time period (weekly, monthly)
• You want a different granularity (one observation per project rather than per fact)
• You have a domain-specific notion of what's worth remembering :::

Example: Weekly event summaries

export HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION="Observations are broad summaries of project events grouped by week. Each observation should capture what happened, what was decided, and what was blocked — not individual facts. Merge related events into cohesive weekly narratives."

Example: Person-centric knowledge

export HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION="Observations are durable facts about specific named people: their preferences, skills, relationships, and behavioral patterns. Only create observations for facts that are stable over time and tied to a named individual."

Example: Support ticket patterns

export HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATIONS_MISSION="Observations are recurring patterns in customer support interactions: common failure modes, frequently requested features, and pain points that appear across multiple tickets."

Reflect

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_MAX_ITERATIONS	Max tool call iterations before forcing a response	10
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_MAX_CONTEXT_TOKENS	Max accumulated context tokens in the reflect loop before forcing final synthesis. Prevents context_length_exceeded errors on large banks. Lower this if your LLM has a context window smaller than 128K.	100000
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_WALL_TIMEOUT	Wall-clock timeout in seconds for the entire reflect operation. If exceeded, the request returns HTTP 504.	300
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_MISSION	Global reflect mission (identity and reasoning framing). Overridden per bank via config API.	-
HINDSIGHT_API_REFLECT_SOURCE_FACTS_MAX_TOKENS	Token budget for source facts in search_observations during reflect. -1 disables source facts (default), 0 enables with no limit, >0 enables with a token budget. Hierarchical — can be overridden per bank via config API.	-1

Disposition

Disposition traits control how the bank reasons during reflect operations. Each trait is on a scale of 1–5. These are hierarchical — they can be overridden per bank via the config API.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_DISPOSITION_SKEPTICISM	How skeptical vs trusting (1=trusting, 5=skeptical)	3
HINDSIGHT_API_DISPOSITION_LITERALISM	How literally to interpret information (1=flexible, 5=literal)	3
HINDSIGHT_API_DISPOSITION_EMPATHY	How much to consider emotional context (1=detached, 5=empathetic)	3

MCP Server

Configuration for MCP server endpoints.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED	Enable MCP server at /mcp/{bank_id}/	true
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED_TOOLS	Comma-separated allowlist of MCP tools to expose globally (empty = all tools)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_STATELESS	Use stateless HTTP transport (POST-only). When false, enables stateful mode with GET/SSE support for server-initiated messages	false
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN	Bearer token for MCP authentication (optional)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_LOCAL_BANK_ID	Memory bank ID for local MCP	mcp
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_INSTRUCTIONS	Additional instructions appended to retain/recall tool descriptions	-

Tool Access Control:

HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED_TOOLS restricts which MCP tools are registered at the server level. This is useful for read-only deployments or limiting surface area:

# Expose only recall (read-only deployment)
export HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED_TOOLS=recall

# Expose recall and reflect only
export HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED_TOOLS=recall,reflect

Available tool names: retain, recall, reflect, list_banks, create_bank, list_mental_models, get_mental_model, create_mental_model, update_mental_model, delete_mental_model, refresh_mental_model, list_directives, create_directive, delete_directive, list_memories, get_memory, delete_memory, list_documents, get_document, delete_document, list_operations, get_operation, cancel_operation, list_tags, get_bank, get_bank_stats, update_bank, delete_bank, clear_memories.

This can also be overridden per bank via the config API:

# Restrict a specific bank to read-only MCP access
curl -X PATCH http://localhost:8888/v1/default/banks/my-bank/config \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"updates": {"mcp_enabled_tools": ["recall"]}}'

When a bank-level mcp_enabled_tools is set, tools not in the list return a clear error when invoked (they still appear in the tools list for MCP protocol compatibility).

MCP Authentication:

By default, the MCP endpoint is open. For production deployments, set HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN to require Bearer token authentication:

export HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=your-secret-token

Clients must then include the token in the Authorization header. See MCP Server documentation for details.

Local MCP instructions:

# Example: instruct MCP to also store assistant actions
export HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_INSTRUCTIONS="Also store every action you take, including tool calls and decisions made."

Distributed Workers

Configuration for background task processing. By default, the API processes tasks internally. For high-throughput deployments, run dedicated workers. See Services - Worker Service for details.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_ENABLED	Enable internal worker in API process	true
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_ID	Unique worker identifier	hostname
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_POLL_INTERVAL_MS	Database polling interval in milliseconds	500
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_MAX_RETRIES	Max retries before marking task failed	3
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_HTTP_PORT	HTTP port for worker metrics/health (worker CLI only)	8889
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_MAX_SLOTS	Maximum concurrent tasks per worker	10
HINDSIGHT_API_WORKER_CONSOLIDATION_MAX_SLOTS	Maximum concurrent consolidation tasks per worker	2

Performance Optimization

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_SKIP_LLM_VERIFICATION	Skip LLM connection check on startup	false
HINDSIGHT_API_LAZY_RERANKER	Lazy-load reranker model (faster startup)	false

Webhooks

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_WEBHOOK_URL	Global webhook URL for event delivery	- (disabled)
HINDSIGHT_API_WEBHOOK_SECRET	HMAC signing secret for webhook payloads	- (unsigned)
HINDSIGHT_API_WEBHOOK_EVENT_TYPES	Comma-separated list of event types to deliver via webhook	consolidation.completed
HINDSIGHT_API_WEBHOOK_DELIVERY_POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS	How often the webhook delivery worker polls for pending deliveries (seconds)	30

Audit Logging

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_AUDIT_LOG_ENABLED	Master switch for audit logging	false
HINDSIGHT_API_AUDIT_LOG_ACTIONS	Comma-separated allowlist of action types to audit (empty = all eligible actions)	""
HINDSIGHT_API_AUDIT_LOG_RETENTION_DAYS	Number of days to retain audit log entries. -1 = keep forever.	-1

Programmatic Configuration

You can also configure the API programmatically using MemoryEngine.from_env():

from hindsight_api import MemoryEngine

memory = MemoryEngine.from_env()
await memory.initialize()

---

Observability & Tracing

Hindsight provides OpenTelemetry-based observability for LLM calls, conforming to GenAI semantic conventions.

OpenTelemetry Tracing

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED	Enable distributed tracing for LLM calls	false
HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	OTLP endpoint URL (e.g., Grafana LGTM, Langfuse, etc.)	-
HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS	Headers for OTLP exporter (format: "key1=value1,key2=value2")	-
HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_SERVICE_NAME	Service name for traces	hindsight-api
HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT	Deployment environment name (e.g., development, staging, production)	development

Features:

• Full prompts and completions recorded as events
• Token usage tracking (input/output)
• Model and provider information
• Error tracking with finish reasons
• Conforms to OpenTelemetry GenAI semantic conventions v1.37+

OTLP-Compatible Backends:

The tracing implementation uses standard OTLP HTTP protocol, so it works with any OTLP-compatible backend:

• Grafana LGTM (Recommended for local dev): All-in-one stack with Tempo traces, Loki logs, Mimir metrics, and Grafana UI
• Langfuse: LLM-focused observability and analytics
• OpenLIT: Built-in LLM dashboards, cost tracking
• DataDog, New Relic, Honeycomb: Commercial platforms

Example Configuration:

# Enable tracing
export HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED=true

# Configure endpoint (example: OpenLIT Cloud)
export HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://otlp.openlit.io
export HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Bearer olit-xxx"

# Optional: Custom service name and environment
export HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=hindsight-production
export HINDSIGHT_API_OTEL_DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT=production

Local Development:

For local development, we recommend the Grafana LGTM stack which provides traces, metrics, and logs in a single container:

./scripts/dev/start-grafana.sh

See scripts/dev/grafana/README.md for detailed setup instructions.

Other options: See scripts/dev/openlit/README.md for OpenLIT or scripts/dev/jaeger/README.md for standalone Jaeger.

Metrics

Hindsight exposes Prometheus metrics at the /metrics endpoint, including:

• LLM call duration and token usage
• Operation duration (retain/recall/reflect)
• HTTP request metrics
• Database connection pool metrics

Metrics are always enabled and available at http://localhost:8888/metrics.

---

Control Plane

The Control Plane is the web UI for managing memory banks.

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_CP_DATAPLANE_API_URL	URL of the API service	http://localhost:8888
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH	Base path for Control Plane UI when behind reverse proxy (e.g., /hindsight)	"" (root)

# Point Control Plane to a remote API service
export HINDSIGHT_CP_DATAPLANE_API_URL=http://api.example.com:8888

Hierarchical Configuration

Hindsight supports per-bank configuration overrides through a hierarchical system: Global (env vars) → Tenant → Bank.

Type-Safe Config Access

To prevent accidentally using global defaults when bank-specific overrides exist, Hindsight enforces type-safe config access:

In Application Code:

from hindsight_api.config import get_config

# ✅ Access static (infrastructure) fields
config = get_config()
host = config.host  # OK - static field
port = config.port  # OK - static field

# ❌ Attempting to access bank-configurable fields raises an error
chunk_size = config.retain_chunk_size  # ConfigFieldAccessError!

Error Message:

ConfigFieldAccessError: Field 'retain_chunk_size' is bank-configurable and cannot
be accessed from global config. Use ConfigResolver.resolve_full_config(bank_id, context)
to get bank-specific config.

For Bank-Specific Config:

# Internal code that needs bank-specific settings
from hindsight_api.config_resolver import ConfigResolver

# Resolve full config for a specific bank
config = await config_resolver.resolve_full_config(bank_id, request_context)
chunk_size = config.retain_chunk_size  # ✅ Uses bank-specific value

This design prevents bugs where global defaults are used instead of bank overrides, making it impossible to make this mistake at compile/development time.

Security Model

Configuration fields are categorized for security:

1. Configurable Fields - Safe behavioral settings that can be customized per-bank:

   • Retention: retain_chunk_size, retain_extraction_mode, retain_mission, retain_custom_instructions
   • Observations: enable_observations, observations_mission, max_observations_per_scope
   • MCP access control: mcp_enabled_tools

2. Credential Fields - NEVER exposed or configurable via API:

   • API keys: *_api_key (all LLM API keys)
   • Infrastructure: *_base_url (all base URLs)

3. Static Fields - Server-level only, cannot be overridden:

   • Infrastructure: database_url, port, host, worker_count
   • Provider/Model selection: llm_provider, llm_model (requires presets - not yet implemented)
   • Performance tuning: llm_max_concurrent, llm_timeout, retrieval settings, optimization flags

Enabling the API

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_BANK_CONFIG_API	Enable per-bank config API	true

API Endpoints

• GET /v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/config - View resolved config (filtered by permissions)
• PATCH /v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/config - Update bank overrides (only allowed fields)
• DELETE /v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/config - Reset to defaults

Permission System

Tenant extensions can control which fields banks are allowed to modify via get_allowed_config_fields():

class CustomTenantExtension(TenantExtension):
    async def get_allowed_config_fields(self, context, bank_id):
        # Option 1: Allow all configurable fields
        return None

        # Option 2: Allow specific fields only
        return {"retain_chunk_size", "retain_custom_instructions"}

        # Option 3: Read-only (no modifications)
        return set()

Examples

# Update retention settings for a bank
curl -X PATCH http://localhost:8888/v1/default/banks/my-bank/config \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "updates": {
      "retain_chunk_size": 4000,
      "retain_extraction_mode": "custom",
      "retain_custom_instructions": "Focus on technical details and implementation specifics"
    }
  }'

# Note: retain_extraction_mode must be "custom" to use retain_custom_instructions

# View resolved config (respects permissions)
curl http://localhost:8888/v1/default/banks/my-bank/config

# Reset to defaults
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8888/v1/default/banks/my-bank/config

Security Notes:

• Credentials (API keys, base URLs) are never returned in responses
• Only configurable fields can be modified
• Responses are filtered by tenant permissions
• Attempting to set credentials returns 400 error

Reverse Proxy / Subpath Deployment

To deploy Hindsight under a subpath (e.g., example.com/hindsight/):

1. Set both environment variables to the same path:

   HINDSIGHT_API_BASE_PATH=/hindsight
   NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH=/hindsight
   

2. Configure your reverse proxy to:

   • Forward /hindsight/* requests to Hindsight
   • Preserve the full path in forwarded requests
   • Set appropriate proxy headers (X-Forwarded-Proto, X-Forwarded-For)

Example: Nginx Configuration

location /hindsight/ {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8888/;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}

Example: Traefik Configuration

http:
  routers:
    hindsight:
      rule: "PathPrefix(`/hindsight`)"
      service: hindsight
      middlewares:
        - hindsight-stripprefix

  middlewares:
    hindsight-stripprefix:
      stripPrefix:
        prefixes:
          - "/hindsight"

  services:
    hindsight:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: "http://localhost:8888"

Important Notes:

• The base path must start with / and should NOT end with /
• Both API and Control Plane should use the same base path
• After setting environment variables, restart both services
• OpenAPI docs will be available at <base-path>/docs (e.g., /hindsight/docs)

Complete Examples:

See docker/compose-examples/ directory for:

• Nginx configuration files (simple.conf, api-and-control-plane.conf)
• Docker Compose setups (docker-compose.yml, reverse-proxy-only.yml)
• Traefik and other reverse proxy examples
• Full deployment documentation

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Example .env File

# API Service
HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://hindsight:hindsight_dev@localhost:5432/hindsight
# HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_SCHEMA=public  # optional, defaults to 'public'
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER=groq
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY=gsk_xxxxxxxxxxxx

# Authentication (optional, recommended for production)
# HINDSIGHT_API_TENANT_EXTENSION=hindsight_api.extensions.builtin.tenant:ApiKeyTenantExtension
# HINDSIGHT_API_TENANT_API_KEY=your-secret-api-key

# File storage (optional, defaults to PostgreSQL native storage)
# HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_TYPE=s3
# HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET=my-hindsight-files
# HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_REGION=us-east-1
# HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
# HINDSIGHT_API_FILE_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

# Control Plane
HINDSIGHT_CP_DATAPLANE_API_URL=http://localhost:8888

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For configuration issues not covered here, please open an issue on GitHub.