Reference

Configuration

Every setting Bristlenose reads, with its default.

This page lists the settings the command line reads. In the macOS app, the same things are set in the Settings window (⌘,) — see the setup guides under How-to guides.

Bristlenose reads settings from four places. Later sources override earlier ones:

  1. Built-in defaults
  2. A .env file (searched upward from the working directory)
  3. BRISTLENOSE_* environment variables
  4. Command-line flags

API keys follow a separate order, and it runs the other way: the matching environment variable first, then .env, and the system credential store last — it fills in only the keys nothing else has supplied. So a variable left exported in your shell, or a forgotten .env, silently wins over the key you stored with bristlenose configure. If a key you saved isn't the one being used, look for an environment variable first. Bristlenose reads .env but never writes to it.

Provider settings

Variable Default Meaning
BRISTLENOSE_LLM_PROVIDER anthropic anthropic, openai, azure, google, or local.
BRISTLENOSE_LLM_MODEL claude-sonnet-4-6 Model name for the active provider.
BRISTLENOSE_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY — Claude API key.
BRISTLENOSE_OPENAI_API_KEY — ChatGPT API key.
BRISTLENOSE_GOOGLE_API_KEY — Gemini API key.
BRISTLENOSE_AZURE_API_KEY — Azure OpenAI key.
BRISTLENOSE_AZURE_ENDPOINT — Azure resource endpoint URL.
BRISTLENOSE_AZURE_DEPLOYMENT — Azure deployment name (used in place of a model name).
BRISTLENOSE_AZURE_API_VERSION 2024-10-21 Azure API version.
BRISTLENOSE_LOCAL_URL http://localhost:11434/v1 Ollama server address.
BRISTLENOSE_LOCAL_MODEL llama3.2:3b Local model name.
BRISTLENOSE_LLM_MAX_TOKENS 64000 Maximum output tokens per call.
BRISTLENOSE_LLM_TEMPERATURE 0.1 Sampling temperature.
BRISTLENOSE_LLM_CONCURRENCY 3 Number of analysis calls run in parallel.

Transcription settings

Variable Default Meaning
BRISTLENOSE_WHISPER_MODEL large-v3-turbo Transcription model size. Smaller is faster and less accurate.
BRISTLENOSE_WHISPER_BACKEND auto auto, mlx, or faster-whisper.
BRISTLENOSE_WHISPER_LANGUAGE en Spoken language of the recordings.

Analysis and privacy settings

Variable Default Meaning
BRISTLENOSE_PII_ENABLED false Enable PII redaction (also set by --redact-pii).
BRISTLENOSE_PII_SCORE_THRESHOLD 0.7 Detection confidence for redaction, 0.0–1.0.
BRISTLENOSE_MIN_QUOTE_WORDS 5 Minimum words for a quote to be extracted.
BRISTLENOSE_CODEBOOK — Codebook framework to apply during analysis.
BRISTLENOSE_COLOR_SCHEME auto Report theme: auto, light, or dark.
BRISTLENOSE_PALETTE default Colour palette: default or edo. Also set by serve --palette. See Appearance.
BRISTLENOSE_LOG_LEVEL INFO Log-file verbosity. Independent of -v.

To store an API key rather than set it as an environment variable, use bristlenose configure <provider> — see the per-provider guides under How-to guides.

Previous CLI commands