Configuration

Litara is configured via environment variables on the API container.

Environment Variables

Required

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string. Example: postgresql://postgres:postgres@db:5432/litara
JWT_SECRET	Secret used to sign JWT authentication tokens. Use a long, random string in production.

Library

Variable	Default	Description
EBOOK_LIBRARY_PATH	/books	Absolute path to the directory containing your ebook files. The API watches this folder for new and removed files. Matches the standard Docker volume mount path — no override needed in the default Docker Compose setup.

Server

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	3000	HTTP port the API listens on.

Metadata Enrichment

Variable	Default	Description
GOOGLE_BOOKS_API_KEY	(none)	Optional Google Books API key used when enriching book metadata manually. Without a key, requests are rate-limited to ~100/day. With a key, the limit increases to 1,000/day.
HARDCOVER_API_KEY	(none)	Optional Hardcover API key. Required to use Hardcover as a metadata source. See below for setup notes.

Hardcover API Key

Litara uses the Hardcover GraphQL API to search and enrich book metadata. To enable it:

1. Sign in to hardcover.app and go to Settings → API.
2. Copy your personal API key.
3. Set it as HARDCOVER_API_KEY in your environment.

caution

Do not include the word Bearer in the value — just paste the raw key. Litara adds the Bearer prefix automatically.

note

Hardcover API keys typically expire after approximately one year. If metadata lookups from Hardcover suddenly stop working, check whether your key has expired and generate a new one from your Hardcover account settings.

Notes

• JWT_SECRET must be kept secret. Rotating it will invalidate all existing sessions and require all users to log in again.
• Rotating JWT_SECRET also invalidates stored SMTP passwords. Litara encrypts all SMTP passwords (both the server-level config and each user's personal SMTP config) using a key derived from JWT_SECRET. If you rotate the secret, all stored SMTP passwords will become unreadable — the admin must re-enter the server SMTP password, and each user must re-enter their personal SMTP password.
• Database migrations run automatically on startup via prisma migrate deploy.