Configure Meridian: All Environment Variables Explained

Learn where Meridian’s config files live, how to edit them, and what every environment variable does — from polling intervals to PM credentials.

Meridian is configured entirely through environment variables. There are no config files with special formats or UI settings to hunt down — every option is a key-value pair in a single .env file. meridian setup creates the file and you can edit it at any time.

Where configuration lives

The npm install lays out the runtime under ~/.meridian/:

Path	Purpose
~/.meridian/app/.env	The one backend config — read by the daemon, classifier, and worklog stage.
~/.meridian/meridian.db	The session database.
~/.meridian/logs/	Per-service logs (daemon, MLX server, screenpipe, UI).
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.meridiona.*.plist	The launchd agents registered by meridian setup.

Contributors building from source share the same on-disk layout, except their config lives at the repo-root .env instead of ~/.meridian/app/.env (the source checkout is what meridian dev runs against).

Editing configuration

To open the config in your $EDITOR, run:

meridian config edit

This opens ~/.meridian/app/.env (or the repo-root .env for source builds). After saving, restart for the change to take effect:

meridian restart

Environment variable reference

Core daemon settings

These variables control how the Rust daemon reads screenpipe data and classifies sessions. All of them are optional — the defaults work out of the box.

Variable	Default	Description
SCREENPIPE_DB	~/.screenpipe/db.sqlite	Path to screenpipe’s SQLite database. Meridian opens this read-only.
MERIDIAN_DB	~/.meridian/meridian.db	Path where Meridian writes its own session database. Created on first run.
POLL_INTERVAL_SECS	60	How often (in seconds) the daemon checks screenpipe for new frames.
CLASSIFICATION_ENABLED	true	Set to false to run activity tracking and categorisation only, with no MLX server needed.
MLX_SERVER_PORT	7823	The port the persistent MLX inference server listens on.
CLASSIFICATION_TIMEOUT_S	120	Per-session inference timeout in seconds. Increase this if you see timeout errors on long sessions.
CLASSIFIER_BACKEND	mlx	Classification backend. Set to mlx when using the MLX inference server (recommended for Apple Silicon).

Setting CLASSIFICATION_ENABLED=false lets you run Meridian in activity-tracking mode. The daemon still reads screenpipe frames, builds app sessions, and assigns activity categories — it just skips the ticket-linking step and doesn’t require the MLX server to be running. This is useful if you’re not ready to configure PM credentials or just want to explore the session data first.

Jira

All three credential variables are required to enable the Jira connector. JIRA_PROJECT_KEYS is optional — omitting it syncs across all projects your account can access.

Variable	Default	Description
JIRA_BASE_URL	(none)	Your Atlassian instance URL, e.g. https://your-org.atlassian.net.
JIRA_EMAIL	(none)	The email address associated with your Atlassian account.
JIRA_API_TOKEN	(none)	An Atlassian API token. Generate one at id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/api-tokens.
JIRA_PROJECT_KEYS	(all projects)	Comma-separated project keys to scope ticket lookups, e.g. KAN,ENG. Leave empty to search all accessible projects.

GitHub

Both credential variables are required to enable the GitHub connector. GITHUB_REPOS is optional — omitting it covers all repositories in your org.

Variable	Default	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	(none)	A GitHub personal access token with repo scope.
GITHUB_ORG	(none)	Your GitHub organisation name.
GITHUB_REPOS	(all org repos)	Comma-separated list of org/repo slugs to scope issue lookups, e.g. your-org/api,your-org/web. Leave empty to search all org repos.

Linear

The API key is required to enable the Linear connector. LINEAR_TEAM_IDS is optional.

Variable	Default	Description
LINEAR_API_KEY	(none)	A Linear API key. Generate one in your Linear workspace under Settings → API.
LINEAR_TEAM_IDS	(all teams)	Comma-separated team identifiers to scope issue lookups, e.g. TEAM1,TEAM2. Leave empty to search all teams your key can access.

Minimal working configuration

The smallest configuration that enables activity tracking, session categorisation, and Jira ticket sync is:

~/.meridian/app/.env

# Required for task classification and Jira sync
JIRA_BASE_URL=https://your-org.atlassian.net
JIRA_EMAIL=[e-mail]
JIRA_API_TOKEN=your-api-token

# Enable classification (default: true — shown here for clarity)
CLASSIFICATION_ENABLED=true

Everything else defaults to safe values and can be added incrementally.

Editing credentials later

The npm install does not include an interactive credential prompt — edit the file directly:

meridian config edit
meridian restart

Contributors who built from source can re-run ./install.sh --skip-permissions to be re-prompted for any variable that isn’t already set; ./install.sh --skip-env bypasses the prompt flow entirely.

You can edit the .env with any text editor and then run meridian restart. The daemon reads the file once at startup and does not hot-reload changes.