Environment Variables

AgentZero reads several environment variables for API keys, backend selection, and runtime overrides.

`.env` File Support

All environment variables can be set in .env files instead of (or in addition to) the shell environment. AgentZero loads .env files from two locations:

Config directory (~/.agentzero/.env) — global defaults
Current working directory (./.env) — project-local overrides

Within each directory, files are loaded in this order (later overrides earlier):

.env — base values
.env.local — local overrides (typically gitignored)
.env.{AGENTZERO_ENV} — environment-specific (e.g. .env.production), selected via AGENTZERO_ENV, APP_ENV, or NODE_ENV

CWD files take priority over config-dir files. Process environment variables (export) take priority over all .env files.

Core Variables

Variable	Description	Default
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	API key for OpenAI-compatible providers	—
`AGENTZERO_ENV`	Environment mode (`development` or `production`). When `production`, startup validates TLS and auth are configured	`development`
`AGENTZERO_DATA_DIR`	Override data/config directory	`~/.agentzero`
`AGENTZERO_CONFIG`	Override config file path	`$DATA_DIR/agentzero.toml`
`AGENTZERO_MEMORY_BACKEND`	Memory backend (`sqlite` or `turso`)	`sqlite`
`AGENTZERO_DATA_KEY`	Encryption key for storage (base64 or 64-char hex)	auto-generated key file
`AGENTZERO_GATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN`	Static bearer token for gateway auth	—
`RUST_LOG`	Logging level (also set via `-v` flags)	—

Provider Keys

Variable	Description
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	OpenAI, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible provider
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Anthropic direct API access
`BRAVE_API_KEY`	Brave Search API (for `web_search` tool)
`PERPLEXITY_API_KEY`	Perplexity Search API
`EXA_API_KEY`	Exa Search API
`JINA_API_KEY`	Jina Reader/Search API
`COMPOSIO_API_KEY`	Composio integration API
`GROQ_API_KEY`	Groq API (used for audio transcription via `[audio]` config)

Memory Backend

Variable	Description
`AGENTZERO_MEMORY_BACKEND`	`sqlite` (default) or `turso`
`TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN`	Auth token for Turso/libsql remote backend
`TURSO_DATABASE_URL`	Turso database URL

Verbosity via CLI

The -v flag maps to RUST_LOG levels:

agentzero -v status        # RUST_LOG=error
agentzero -vv status       # RUST_LOG=info
agentzero -vvv status      # RUST_LOG=debug
agentzero -vvvv status     # RUST_LOG=trace

JSON Output

Any command supports --json for machine-readable output:

agentzero --json status

Output format:

{
  "ok": true,
  "command": "status",
  "result": { ... },
  "error": null
}