Environment variables

All githome configuration is done through environment variables with the GITHOME_ prefix. Variables can also be set in a config file; see Config file below.

Core

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_ENV	production	Runtime mode. production enables secure defaults (HTTPS-only cookies, stricter headers). development relaxes those for local work.
GITHOME_HTML_BASE_URL	(required)	Public-facing base URL, e.g. https://git.example.com. Used in clone URLs, webhook payloads, and email links. No trailing slash.
GITHOME_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT	10s	How long to wait for in-flight requests to finish when the process receives SIGTERM.

Database

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_DATABASE_URL	sqlite:///var/lib/githome/githome.sqlite	Database connection string. Prefix sqlite:/// for SQLite (absolute path) or a standard postgres://user:pass@host/db DSN for PostgreSQL.
GITHOME_DB_POOL_SIZE	10	Maximum number of open database connections in the pool. Increase for high-concurrency Postgres deployments.

Storage

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_DATA_DIR	/var/lib/githome	Directory where git bare repositories are stored. Must be readable and writable by the githome process. Each repository is stored as {owner}/{repo}.git under this path.

Server

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_LISTEN_HTTP	:3000	Address and port for the HTTP listener. Use 0.0.0.0:3000 to bind all interfaces or 127.0.0.1:3000 to bind localhost only.
GITHOME_SERVER_READ_TIMEOUT	15s	Maximum time to read an entire request, including body.
GITHOME_SERVER_WRITE_TIMEOUT	30s	Maximum time to write a response. For large blob downloads, increase this value.
GITHOME_SERVER_IDLE_TIMEOUT	120s	Maximum time to wait for the next request on a keep-alive connection.
GITHOME_SERVER_READ_HEADER_TIMEOUT	5s	Maximum time to read request headers. Helps mitigate slow-header attacks.
GITHOME_SERVER_MAX_BLOB_BYTES	10485760	Maximum size in bytes for a single blob download via the contents API. Default is 10 MiB. Requests for larger blobs are rejected with 403.

Security

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_SESSION_KEY	(auto-generated)	Secret used to sign HTTP session cookies. Must be at least 32 bytes, hex-encoded or raw. If not set, githome generates a random key on startup, which invalidates all sessions on restart. Set a stable value in production.
GITHOME_TOKEN_PEPPER	(auto-generated)	Additional secret mixed into PAT hashes before storage. Must be at least 16 bytes. If not set, githome generates a value on startup. Changing this value invalidates all existing tokens. Set a stable value in production.
GITHOME_GIT_BINARY_PATH	(from PATH)	Absolute path to the git binary. Defaults to the first git found in PATH. Set this when running in a restricted environment where PATH is not reliable.

Logging

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_LOG_LEVEL	info	Minimum log level to emit. One of debug, info, warn, error. Use debug when diagnosing issues; it logs every request and SQL query.
GITHOME_LOG_FORMAT	text	Log output format. text is human-readable with color (when stdout is a terminal). json emits structured JSON lines, suitable for log aggregators like Loki, Datadog, or CloudWatch.

Web UI

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_WEB_ENABLED	true	Set to false to disable the server-rendered web UI entirely. The API and git transport still work. Useful when githome is accessed only programmatically.
GITHOME_WEB_SITE_NAME	Githome	Display name shown in the web UI header, page titles, and email subjects.

Markup

Variable	Default	Description
GITHOME_MARKUP_CAMO_SECRET	(disabled)	HMAC secret for the Camo image proxy. When set alongside GITHOME_MARKUP_CAMO_BASE_URL, external images in Markdown are rewritten to go through the proxy. This prevents clients from leaking their IP to external image servers.
GITHOME_MARKUP_CAMO_BASE_URL	(disabled)	Base URL of the Camo proxy, e.g. https://camo.example.com. Required when GITHOME_MARKUP_CAMO_SECRET is set.

Config file

Instead of setting environment variables in the shell, you can put them in a flat KEY=VALUE file and point githome at it:

GITHOME_CONFIG_FILE=/etc/githome/githome.env githome serve

Inside the file, the GITHOME_ prefix is optional. Both forms are equivalent:

# /etc/githome/githome.env

DATABASE_URL=postgres://githome:[email protected]/githome
DATA_DIR=/var/lib/githome
HTML_BASE_URL=https://git.example.com
LISTEN_HTTP=:3000
SESSION_KEY=0102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f10...
TOKEN_PEPPER=aabbccddeeff00112233...
LOG_FORMAT=json
WEB_SITE_NAME=My Forge

Environment variables in the shell take precedence over values in the config file.

Example: minimal SQLite (development)

This is enough to run a local instance for development. Session and token secrets are not set, so they are regenerated on every restart (all sessions and tokens are invalidated on each start).

export GITHOME_DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///tmp/githome-dev.sqlite
export GITHOME_DATA_DIR=/tmp/githome-repos
export GITHOME_HTML_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000
export GITHOME_ENV=development
export GITHOME_LOG_LEVEL=debug

mkdir -p /tmp/githome-repos
githome serve

Example: PostgreSQL (production)

Production configuration with stable secrets, structured logging, and a PostgreSQL backend:

# /etc/githome/githome.env

ENV=production
DATABASE_URL=postgres://githome:$(cat /run/secrets/db_password)@pg.internal/githome
DB_POOL_SIZE=20
DATA_DIR=/var/lib/githome
HTML_BASE_URL=https://git.example.com
LISTEN_HTTP=:3000

# Generate once: openssl rand -hex 32
SESSION_KEY=a1b2c3d4e5f6...
# Generate once: openssl rand -hex 16
TOKEN_PEPPER=deadbeef...

LOG_LEVEL=info
LOG_FORMAT=json

WEB_ENABLED=true
WEB_SITE_NAME=Acme Git

SERVER_MAX_BLOB_BYTES=52428800
SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT=30s

Start with:

GITHOME_CONFIG_FILE=/etc/githome/githome.env githome serve

Or with systemd, set EnvironmentFile=/etc/githome/githome.env in the unit file and invoke githome serve directly.