Environment Variables

Environment Variables

All vars are validated with Zod in src/config/env.ts. The bot exits immediately if a required var is missing. In Docker, DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL are set for you by docker-compose.yml — you only set POSTGRES_PASSWORD.

Core

Variable	Required	Description
DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN	✅	Bot token from the Developer Portal
DISCORD_CLIENT_ID	✅	Application (client) ID
DATABASE_URL	✅	PostgreSQL connection string. In Docker, set automatically by compose from POSTGRES_PASSWORD (postgresql://squishybot:…@db-squishy:5432/squishybot).
NODE_ENV	—	development / production / test (default: development)
UPTIME_KUMA_PUSH_URL	—	Push-monitor URL — pinged every 60s

Guild

Variable	Required	Description
GUILD_ID	✅	The single Discord server this bot serves

Sudo & owner

Variable	Required	Description
SUDO_ROLE_IDS	—	Comma-separated role IDs with full bot-admin powers
SUDO_USER_IDS	—	Comma-separated user IDs with full bot-admin powers
BOT_OWNER_ID	—	Discord user ID — receives startup + error DMs. Required for /report review and bot-owner kill switches; owner status can also resolve from the dev-portal Team (see Bot Owner).

Voice channels

Variable	Required	Description
AUTO_VOICE_CATEGORY_ID	✅	Category that contains both hubs and auto channels. Overridable at /sudo → Settings → Voice.
HUB_CHANNEL_IDS	—	Comma-separated voice channel IDs to seed as hubs on first boot. Once registered the hub_channels table is authoritative and this can be cleared; manage hubs at runtime via /sudo → Settings → Hub Channels.
VOICE_CLEANUP_DELAY_MS	—	ms before an empty channel is cleaned up. Code default is 0; .env.example seeds 30000. Overridable at /sudo → Settings → Voice.

Channels

Variable	Required	Description
LOG_CHANNEL_ID	—	Bot writes structured logs here
ADMIN_CHANNEL_ID	—	Sudo-only admin channel
STAFF_APPROVAL_THREAD_ID	—	Thread where staff requests post for approval
STAFF_APPROVAL_PING_USER_ID	—	User pinged on each staff request
BIRTHDAY_CHANNEL_ID	—	Birthday-ping channel (also editable at /sudo → Settings → Channels)

Most channel IDs above are overridable at runtime via /sudo → Settings → Channels; the env value is the fallback.

/report (GitHub issues)

Variable	Required	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	—	Fine-grained PAT with Issues: Read & Write on GITHUB_REPO. Required for /report.
GITHUB_REPO	—	owner/name, e.g. jason-tucker/squishybot. Required for /report.

Both are optional — /report replies with a friendly "not configured" error if missing.

botpanel / Redis bus

Variable	Required	Description
BOTPANEL_RPC_SECRET	—	Shared HMAC secret with botpanel for the cmd.squishy.* command bus + bot.squishy.settings.invalidate cache bus. Unset → both subscribers are disabled (the bot still runs); a warning is logged at boot.
REDIS_URL	—	Event/command bus connection. Set by Docker Compose (redis://redis:6379). A downed Redis never blocks the bot.

Docker

Variable	Required	Description
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	—	Password for the Compose-managed Postgres (used to build DATABASE_URL). Use alphanumeric/hex only — avoid #, *, ?.
BOT_IMAGE	—	GHCR image for docker compose pull (default ghcr.io/jason-tucker/squishybot:latest). Set by CI.

The Postgres container has no host port mapping. Reach it with squishybot db:shell (or docker compose exec db psql -U squishybot squishybot).

Deprecated

Variable	Description
CLIPS_CHANNEL_ID / FOOD_CHANNEL_ID	Deprecated. Auto-threading is now configured at /sudo → Settings → Auto Threads (DB-backed, auto_thread_channels). Safe to remove from .env.