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Environment Variables

This page provides a comprehensive reference for all the environment variables you can use to configure your self-hosted Flagsmith instance. You'll find variables for both the API and the frontend, along with a brief description of what each one does. Use this as a handy guide when setting up or tweaking your deployment, whether you're running locally, in the cloud, or on Kubernetes. If you're not sure what a particular variable does, or whether you need to set it, check the relevant section below for more details.

API Environment Variables​

  • DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS: Comma-separated list of domains that can access the API. Alternatively * to allow any.
  • DATABASE_URL: The URL of your PostgreSQL database. Both postgres:// and postgresql:// schemas are supported.
  • REDIS_URL: The URL of your Redis instance.
  • ENV: The environment the application is running in, e.g. "prod".
  • SENTRY_DSN: If you want to send errors to Sentry, specify the DSN here.
  • SENTRY_TRACE_SAMPLE_RATE: The percentage of transactions to trace in Sentry. See Sentry's documentation for more info.
  • LOG_LEVEL: The log level to output at. One of DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL.
  • LOG_FORMAT: The format to use for logging. One of generic or json.
  • DJANGO_SECRET_KEY: A long, random and unique string used for cryptographic signing.
  • ACCESS_LOG_LOCATION: The location to store web logs generated by Gunicorn if running as a Docker container. If not set, no logs will be stored. If set to -, the logs will be sent to stdout.
  • DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE: Python path to settings file for the given environment, e.g. "app.settings.develop"
  • ALLOW_ADMIN_INITIATION_VIA_CLI: Enables the bootstrap management command which creates default admin user, organisation, and project.
  • ADMIN_EMAIL: Email to use for the default superuser creation.
  • ORGANISATION_NAME: Organisation name to use for the default organisation.
  • PROJECT_NAME: Project name to use for the default project.
  • ENABLE_GZIP_COMPRESSION: If Django should gzip compress HTTP responses. Defaults to False.
  • GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_KEY: If Google Analytics is required, add your tracking code.
  • GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT: Service account JSON for accessing the Google API, used for getting usage of an organisation - needs access to analytics.readonly scope.
  • INFLUXDB_TOKEN: If you want to send API events to InfluxDB, specify this write token.
  • INFLUXDB_URL: The URL for your InfluxDB database.
  • INFLUXDB_ORG: The organisation string for your InfluxDB API call.
  • GA_TABLE_ID: GA table ID (view) to query when looking for organisation usage.
  • USER_CREATE_PERMISSIONS: Set the permissions for creating new users, using a comma-separated list of djoser or rest_framework permissions. Use this to turn off public user creation for self-hosting. e.g. 'djoser.permissions.CurrentUserOrAdmin'. Defaults to 'rest_framework.permissions.AllowAny'.
  • ALLOW_REGISTRATION_WITHOUT_INVITE: Determines whether users can register without an invite. Defaults to True. Set to False or 0 to disable. Note that if disabled, new users must be invited via email.
  • PREVENT_SIGNUP: Determines whether to prevent new signups.
  • ENABLE_EMAIL_ACTIVATION: New user registration will go via email activation flow, default False.

Frontend Environment Variables​

  • FLAGSMITH_API_URL: The API to hit for requests. E.g. https://edge.api.flagsmith.com/api/v1/
  • FLAGSMITH_ON_FLAGSMITH_API_KEY: The Flagsmith environment key we use to manage features - Flagsmith runs on Flagsmith.
  • FLAGSMITH_ON_FLAGSMITH_API_URL: The API URL which the Flagsmith client should communicate with. Flagsmith runs on Flagsmith. E.g. https://edge.api.flagsmith.com/api/v1/. If you are self-hosting and using your own Flagsmith instance to manage its own features, you would generally point this to the same domain name as your own Flagsmith instance.
  • DISABLE_ANALYTICS_FEATURES: Disables any in-app analytics-related features: API Usage charts, flag analytics. E.g. DISABLE_ANALYTICS_FEATURES=1.
  • ENABLE_FLAG_EVALUATION_ANALYTICS: Determines if the Flagsmith SDK should send usage analytics. If you want to enable Flag Analytics, set this. E.g. ENABLE_FLAG_EVALUATION_ANALYTICS=1.
  • PROXY_API_URL: Proxies the API via this application. Set this to the hostname of the API being proxied. Proxies /api/v1/ through to PROXY_API_URL. If you are using this, any setting to FLAGSMITH_API_URL will be ignored and the browser will use the frontend node server to send API requests. Do not prepend api/v1/ - it will be added automatically.
  • GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_API_KEY: Google Analytics key to track API usage.
  • CRISP_WEBSITE_ID: Crisp Chat widget Website key.
  • FIRST_PROMOTER_ID: First Promoter ID for checkout affiliates.
  • ALLOW_SIGNUPS: DEPRECATED in favour of PREVENT_SIGNUP in the API. Determines whether to prevent manual signups without invites. Set it to any value to allow signups.
  • PREVENT_FORGOT_PASSWORD: Determines whether to prevent forgot password functionality, useful for LDAP/SAML. Set it to any value to prevent forgot password functionality.
  • PREVENT_EMAIL_PASSWORD: Disables email address signup, login and change email functionality.
  • ENABLE_MAINTENANCE_MODE: Puts the site into maintenance mode. Set it to any value to enable maintenance.
  • AMPLITUDE_API_KEY: The Amplitude key to use for behaviour tracking.
  • REO_API_KEY: The Reo key to use for behaviour tracking.
  • MIXPANEL_API_KEY: Mixpanel analytics key to use for behaviour tracking.
  • SENTRY_API_KEY: Sentry key for error reporting.
  • ALBACROSS_CLIENT_ID: Albacross client ID key for behaviour tracking.
  • BASE_URL: Used for specifying a base URL path that's ignored during routing if serving from a subdirectory.
  • USE_SECURE_COOKIES: Enable/disable the use of secure cookies. If deploying the frontend in a private network without a domain/SSL cert, disable secure cookies to ensure that session token is persisted. Default: true.
  • COOKIE_SAME_SITE: Define the value of the SameSite attribute for the session token cookie set by the frontend. Further reading on this value is available here. Default: 'none'.