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Kino docs

Environment variables

Kino reads a small set of environment variables at boot. Most of them have an equivalent CLI flag or settings-page field — the env var is there for headless deployments, container orchestration, and the service descriptors the native packages install.

The native installers set the variables they need via the systemd unit, the launchd plist, or the Windows Service descriptor — so a service-mode install never picks them up from your shell. Set them yourself only when you’re running Kino under your own supervisor (plain shell, custom systemd unit, container, etc.).

Server

Section titled “Server”

KINO_PORT

Section titled “KINO_PORT”
  • Default: 8080
  • Equivalent flag: --port / -p
  • Purpose: TCP port the HTTP server binds to.
  • Set automatically when: the tray reads it to know which local port to call into.

KINO_DATA_PATH

Section titled “KINO_DATA_PATH”
  • Default: platform-native data directory (XDG on Linux, the application-support directory on macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA% on Windows).
  • Equivalent flag: --data-path
  • Purpose: Directory for the SQLite database, cached images, trickplay sprites, and the librqbit session.
  • Set automatically when: the systemd unit, launchd plist, and Windows Service descriptor pass it explicitly.

KINO_NO_OPEN_BROWSER

Section titled “KINO_NO_OPEN_BROWSER”
  • Default: unset
  • Equivalent flag: --no-open-browser
  • Purpose: Skip the auto-open of the setup wizard in the user’s default browser on first launch.
  • Set automatically when: every service descriptor sets it — a daemon has nowhere to spawn a browser.

KINO_CORS_ORIGIN

Section titled “KINO_CORS_ORIGIN”
  • Default: unset (same-origin only)
  • Purpose: Comma-separated allow-list of origins permitted to make cross-origin requests to Kino. Required when you reverse-proxy the UI from a different host than the API.
  • Example: https://kino.example.com,https://dev.example.com

First-run preconfiguration

Section titled “First-run preconfiguration”

These variables are read only on the very first boot, when Kino is about to insert its initial config row. After first boot, edit the equivalent settings via the UI or PUT /api/v1/config — they are not re-read on every boot. They are convenient for declarative provisioning (Ansible, Docker Compose, Nix) where you’d rather not click through the setup wizard.

KINO_API_KEY

Section titled “KINO_API_KEY”
  • Default: random UUID
  • Purpose: Pre-seed the master API key, instead of letting Kino generate one. Useful in dev environments where the same key needs to live in both the backend and the frontend’s hardcoded fallback.

KINO_TMDB_API_KEY

Section titled “KINO_TMDB_API_KEY”
  • Default: unset
  • Purpose: TMDB Read Access Token, written into config.tmdb_api_key. Without it, metadata features stay disabled until you set a key in the UI.

KINO_MEDIA_PATH

Section titled “KINO_MEDIA_PATH”
  • Default: unset
  • Purpose: Initial value for config.media_library_path — the root directory of your imported library.

KINO_DOWNLOAD_PATH

Section titled “KINO_DOWNLOAD_PATH”
  • Default: unset
  • Purpose: Initial value for config.download_path — the working directory for the BitTorrent client.

KINO_CAST_RECEIVER_APP_ID

Section titled “KINO_CAST_RECEIVER_APP_ID”
  • Default: unset (use the default media receiver CC1AD845)
  • Purpose: Custom Chromecast Receiver application ID — the one registered in the Cast Console for a custom receiver. Useful in dev to keep the devcontainer pointing at your registered receiver across kino reset cycles.

Service supervision

Section titled “Service supervision”

KINO_RESTART_AFTER_RESTORE

Section titled “KINO_RESTART_AFTER_RESTORE”
  • Default: unset
  • Set automatically when: the systemd unit and the macOS launchd plist set this.
  • Purpose: Tells Kino to exit cleanly after a restore completes so that the platform service supervisor restarts it with the freshly restored database loaded.
  • When to set yourself: if you’re running Kino under your own supervisor (plain docker run --restart, a custom systemd unit, etc.), set this so the post-restore exit-and-restart cycle works as intended. Without it, Kino stays running after a restore and the restored data won’t take effect until the next manual restart.

Diagnostics

Section titled “Diagnostics”

KINO_DB_LOG

Section titled “KINO_DB_LOG”
  • Default: unset (sqlx logs hidden)
  • Purpose: tracing filter for the embedded SQLite layer. Set to e.g. debug,kino::api::stream=trace when chasing a SQL or stream issue. Standard tracing-subscriber env-filter syntax.

KINO_EXPORT_OPENAPI

Section titled “KINO_EXPORT_OPENAPI”
  • Default: unset
  • Purpose: Internal — used by the codegen pipeline (just codegen) to dump the in-binary OpenAPI spec to openapi.json. Not relevant at runtime.