RenewCMS/docs/configuration.md

Configuration

RenewCMS reads its configuration from environment variables. On startup it also loads a .env file from the working directory (or its parent) if one exists. Real environment variables take precedence over .env.

Copy .env.example to .env to get started. When a required variable is missing, the server refuses to start and names the variable.

Variables

Required

Name	Description	Example
PUBLIC_URL	Public base URL of the site, including scheme and no trailing slash. Used for links in emails and in the startup log.	https://cms.example.com
JWT_SECRET	Secret used to sign the auth JWT. Use a long random value; changing it logs everyone out.	openssl rand -hex 32
SMTP_EMAIL	Sender address and SMTP username.	noreply@example.com
SMTP_PASSWORD	SMTP password.
SMTP_HOST	SMTP server host.	smtp.example.com
SMTP_PORT	SMTP server port.	465

Optional

Name	Default	Description
ENVIRONMENT	production	production or development. In production the auth cookie is Secure, so it is only sent over HTTPS. development turns on HTTP request logging.
PORT	8080	Port the HTTP server listens on (all interfaces).
DB_FILE	./data/renewcms.db	Path to the SQLite database file. Missing parent directories are created. The schema is migrated automatically at startup.
UPLOAD_DIR	./data/uploads	Directory where uploaded images are stored.
CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	(empty)	Semicolon-separated list of origins allowed to call the API. When empty, no CORS headers are sent. That is the right setting whenever the SPA is served by RenewCMS itself (production) or through the Vite proxy (development).

Relative paths are resolved against the process's working directory. In production, use absolute paths (see deployment.md).

Adding a variable

1. Read it in the code where it is needed (infrastructure or api/, never internal/domain).
2. Register it in cmd/server/main.go: add it to requiredEnvVars if it is required, or to envDefaults if it has a default.
3. Add it to .env.example and to the tables above.

Never hardcode a secret, and never commit .env.