Section Reference

Notable keys per section. Every key is also a CARE_<SECTION>__<KEY> env var. The .env.example file in the repo is the complete, annotated surface.

mage — generator

The MAGE generator that turns a task into a chain. The minimum a fresh checkout needs (written by care init).

Key	Notes
CARE_MAGE__API_KEY	LLM API key.
CARE_MAGE__BASE_URL	OpenAI-compatible base URL (e.g. OpenRouter).
CARE_MAGE__MODEL	Model id (e.g. qwen/qwen3-coder).
CARE_MAGE__MODE	Generation mode.

memory & platform

Key	Notes
CARE_MEMORY__BASE_URL	GigaEvo Memory URL — required for Production mode.
CARE_MEMORY__API_KEY	When the deployment enforces auth.
CARE_PLATFORM__BASE_URL	GigaEvo Platform URL (evolution runs).

chat — chat surface

Key	Default	Notes
CARE_CHAT__DEFAULT_MODE	interactive	Startup mode — interactive or production. Legacy ad_hoc / ad-hoc / adhoc (and prod) aliases normalise to the canonical id on read.
CARE_CHAT__AD_HOC_HISTORY_TURNS	6	Follow-up context window (turns).
CARE_CHAT__AD_HOC_HISTORY_CHARS	1200	Chars per remembered turn.
CARE_CHAT__GENERATION_MAX_ATTEMPTS	3	MAGE generation retries.

Per-stage mode overrides

Each mode runs four configurable pipeline stages — run, save, baseline, evolve — and each defaults to a per-mode preset. Override any single stage with the env pattern CARE_CHAT__MODE__<MODE>__<STAGE>, where <MODE> is INTERACTIVE or PRODUCTION and <STAGE> is RUN / SAVE / BASELINE / EVOLVE. The value sets that stage’s policy:

Value	Behaviour
ask	Gate the stage behind a confirmation prompt first.
auto	Run the stage silently.
skip	Never run the stage (and skip any stage that depends on it).

# Auto-run in Interactive, but gate Save behind a confirmation in Production
CARE_CHAT__MODE__INTERACTIVE__RUN=auto
CARE_CHAT__MODE__PRODUCTION__SAVE=ask

An unset stage defers to the mode preset.

The rest

Section	What to set
hub	CARE_HUB__* — the agent hub for /deploy (base_url, port, autostart, state_file).
upload	CARE_UPLOAD__URL — endpoint for /upload.
sandbox	Backend (local / docker / e2b / firejail) + resource limits for AgentSkills.
tools	@carl_tool registry, bundled builtins (web_search…), on-the-fly synthesis.
telemetry	Opt-in event sink (e.g. Langfuse public/secret keys).
defaults	UI defaults — language, history size, DAG display.
context	User-context injection (CARE.md + long-term-memory digest).
artifacts	Saved-artifact store directory.

DAG display defaults

How [defaults] draws chain DAGs across every surface (chat trail, inspect pane, run overlay, DAG modal).

Key	Default	Notes
CARE_DEFAULTS__DAG_LAYOUT	tb	Initial DAG modal orientation — tb (top-down) or lr (left-to-right). Toggle live with l.
CARE_DEFAULTS__DAG_ASCII	false	Draw DAGs with plain ASCII glyphs instead of Unicode box-drawing — for terminals/fonts that can’t render the box glyphs, or clean copy-paste.
CARE_DEFAULTS__DAG_BUS_LANES	false	Route multi-layer “skip” dependencies as left-margin channels instead of terse ◀ N annotations on the dependent box.

Secrets

Keep API keys out of plaintext TOML with care migrate-secrets — it moves them into the OS keychain.