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

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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)

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

LLM Provider

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER	Provider: openai, anthropic, gemini, groq, ollama, lmstudio	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_TIMEOUT	LLM request timeout in seconds	120
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_GROQ_SERVICE_TIER	Groq service tier: on_demand, flex, auto	auto

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

# 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

# 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

Embeddings

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER	Provider: local, tei, or openai	local
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_LOCAL_MODEL	Model for local provider	BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5
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

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

# 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

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

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.

:::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 or tei	local
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_LOCAL_MODEL	Model for local provider	cross-encoder/ms-marco-MiniLM-L-6-v2
HINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_TEI_URL	TEI server URL	-

# 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

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

Server

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_HOST	Bind address	0.0.0.0
HINDSIGHT_API_PORT	Server port	8888
HINDSIGHT_API_LOG_LEVEL	Log level: debug, info, warning, error	info
HINDSIGHT_API_MCP_ENABLED	Enable MCP server at /mcp/{bank_id}/	true

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. :::

Retrieval

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_GRAPH_RETRIEVER	Graph retrieval algorithm: bfs or mpfp	bfs

Entity Observations

Controls when the system generates entity observations (summaries about entities mentioned in retained content).

Variable	Description	Default
HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATION_MIN_FACTS	Minimum facts about an entity before generating observations	5
HINDSIGHT_API_OBSERVATION_TOP_ENTITIES	Max entities to process per retain batch	5

Local MCP Server

Configuration for the local MCP server (hindsight-local-mcp command).

Variable	Description	Default
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	-

# 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."

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

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()

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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

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

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Example .env File

# API Service
HINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://hindsight:hindsight_dev@localhost:5432/hindsight
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

# 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.