Configuration¶

The application is configured using environment variables and Pydantic Settings. This ensures strict type validation for all configuration options.

Environment-Based Configuration¶

The application supports three environments with automatic .env file selection based on the ENV variable:

The environment is determined at startup from the QUOIN_ENV environment variable, with ENV as a fallback for backward compatibility.

Environment Variable Prefix¶

All application settings use the QUOIN_ prefix for namespacing. This prevents conflicts with system or other application variables.

# Example: setting log level
export QUOIN_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

# Without prefix (won't work)
export LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG  # ❌ Ignored

Setup¶

Copy the example configuration to create your local .env file:

cp .env.example .env

The template contains these defaults — ready for local development with Docker:

# Application
# Environment: development, test, production
QUOIN_ENV=development
QUOIN_LOG_LEVEL=INFO
QUOIN_OTEL_ENABLED=True

# Database
QUOIN_POSTGRES_DRIVER=postgresql+asyncpg
QUOIN_POSTGRES_HOST=localhost
QUOIN_POSTGRES_PORT=5432
QUOIN_POSTGRES_USER=postgres
QUOIN_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres
QUOIN_POSTGRES_DB=app_db

Creating Environment-Specific Files¶

Create .env.test for test-specific settings:

# .env.test
QUOIN_ENV=test
QUOIN_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG
QUOIN_OTEL_ENABLED=False
QUOIN_POSTGRES_DB=test_db

Create .env.production for production settings (never commit this):

# .env.production
QUOIN_ENV=production
QUOIN_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
QUOIN_OTEL_ENABLED=True
QUOIN_POSTGRES_HOST=your-prod-db-host
# ... other production settings

Key Settings¶

Core Settings Module¶

All settings are defined in app/core/config.py. The Settings class defines the schema and validation rules.

from enum import StrEnum
from pydantic import PostgresDsn, computed_field
from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings

class Environment(StrEnum):
    """Application environment."""
    development = "development"
    test = "test"
    production = "production"

class Settings(BaseSettings):
    model_config = SettingsConfigDict(
        env_prefix="quoin_",
        case_sensitive=False,
        env_file=env_file,  # Automatically selected
    )

    ENV: Environment = Environment.development
    LOG_LEVEL: str = "INFO"
    OTEL_ENABLED: bool = True

    # Database - constructed from individual POSTGRES_* vars
    POSTGRES_HOST: str = "localhost"
    POSTGRES_PORT: int = 5432
    # ... other POSTGRES_* fields

    @computed_field
    @property
    def DATABASE_URL(self) -> PostgresDsn:
        \"\"\"Assemble the database URL.\"\"\"
        # Constructed from POSTGRES_* fields

Database Configuration¶

The database connection is managed in app/db/session.py. The async engine is created via create_db_engine() and stored on app.state.engine during the application lifespan. It uses SQLModel (a wrapper around SQLAlchemy) with the async asyncpg driver for high performance.

• Changes: Never modify the database schema manually. Always change the SQLModel definition in Python.
• Migrations: Use just migrate-gen \"message\" to generate migration scripts.

See Also¶

• Database Migrations Guide — Managing schema changes
• .env.example — Environment variables template
• app/core/config.py — Settings module