Environment Variables

Environment Variables

The README's Configuration Parameters table covers the essentials. This is the full list, including a few that don't show up there yet.

Core

Variable	Description	Default	Required
PORT	Port the backend server listens on.	7780	No
DB_TYPE	PGLITE for the embedded database, or anything else to use DATABASE_URL against an external Postgres.	PGLITE	Yes
DB_DIR	Directory to persist PGlite's data files.	./manup	Only for DB_TYPE=PGLITE
DATABASE_URL	Connection string for an external Postgres instance.	postgres://postgres:password@localhost:5432/manup	Only if DB_TYPE is not PGLITE
MASTER_KEY	32-character hex key used to encrypt/decrypt secret values at rest. Losing this makes all stored secrets unrecoverable — back it up outside the container.	—	Yes
JWT_SECRET	Signs short-lived access-token cookies.	—	Yes
REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET	Signs long-lived (7-day) refresh tokens. Must be a different value from JWT_SECRET — it's a separate secret specifically so access and refresh tokens can't be swapped for each other.	—	Yes
ALLOWED_ORIGINS	Comma-separated list of origins allowed by CORS. If unset, defaults to same-origin (http://localhost:<PORT>) plus http://localhost:5173 for local Vite dev.	—	No

Signup gating & default admin

Variable	Description	Default
ENABLE_SIGNUP	true/false. If set, always wins. If unset: disabled once DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL/DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD are both set, enabled otherwise.	unset
DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL	If set together with DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD, a default org owner is created on first startup.	—
DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD	Must be 8-128 characters, same as any user password.	—
DEFAULT_ADMIN_NAME	Display name for the seeded admin.	Admin
DEFAULT_ADMIN_USERNAME	Username for the seeded admin.	admin

The seed runs on every startup but is idempotent — it checks for a user with DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL first and skips if one already exists, so it's safe across restarts/redeploys. It creates a full tenant (organization + owner user + a "Default Project" + a "development" environment), the same as going through /register by hand.

This is meant for single-admin self-hosted deployments: set the two vars, leave ENABLE_SIGNUP unset, and you get one bootstrapped admin account with public registration closed — no one else can create an organization on your instance. If you want an open multi-tenant instance instead (anyone can sign up and get their own org), just don't set DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL/DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD (or set ENABLE_SIGNUP=true explicitly to keep signup open even with a default admin configured).

Email (optional — org member invites)

Only used to email temporary credentials when inviting a new member to an organization. If any of these are missing, invite emails are silently skipped (the invite still succeeds — you'll just need to relay the credentials another way).

Variable	Description	Default
SMTP_HOST	SMTP server host.	— (unset = email sending disabled)
SMTP_PORT	SMTP server port. 465 is treated as implicit TLS.	587
SMTP_USER	SMTP auth username.	—
SMTP_PASS	SMTP auth password.	—
SMTP_FROM	From: address on outgoing invite emails.	ManUp Secure Vault <no-reply@manup.io>

Production checklist

• Never run with the default JWT_SECRET/MASTER_KEY/REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET values (development / development-refresh) — the server refuses to start with those in NODE_ENV=production.
• Generate JWT_SECRET and REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET as two independent random values — don't reuse one for both.
• MASTER_KEY must be a 32-character hex string. Store it somewhere durable outside the container/volume (a secrets manager, a password manager, etc.) — it's not recoverable from the database.