Environment variables

Home Lab needs no environment variables to run - sensible defaults apply. The variables below let you tune ports, storage, TLS and caching.

Core

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	8088	Port the server listens on
HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address
DATA_DIR	/data	Where the SQLite DB and backups live (persist this)
STATIC_DIR	project root	Directory the static front-end is served from
SEED	false	Seed demo data on first run (leave off for an empty start)

Backups

Variable	Default	Description
BACKUP_KEEP	7	How many daily backups to retain

Caching & timeouts

Variable	Default	Description
WIDGET_TTL_MS	8000	How long widget responses are cached
HEALTH_TTL_MS	-	Cache TTL for health-source samples
STATUS_TTL_MS	-	Cache TTL for service status
STATUS_INTERVAL_MS	-	How often background status refresh runs
FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS	-	Upstream request timeout

TLS

Variable	Default	Description
INSECURE_TLS	off	Accept self-signed certs from upstream services (e.g. Proxmox)
NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED	1	Node's global TLS verification toggle

Self-signed upstreams

Many homelab services (Proxmox, PBS) use self-signed certificates. Set INSECURE_TLS=1 so widget requests to them succeed. This only affects Home Lab's outbound requests to your services.

Example

services:
  homelab:
    image: homelab:latest
    environment:
      PORT: 8088
      DATA_DIR: /data
      BACKUP_KEEP: 7
      INSECURE_TLS: 1
    volumes:
      - homelab-data:/data
    ports:
      - "8088:8088"

volumes:
  homelab-data:

Next steps

• Installation
• Architecture