Skip to main content
VectorLint reads configuration from environment variables at runtime. You can set them in two places:
  • ~/.vectorlint/config.toml — global defaults that apply across all projects
  • .env in your project root — project-level overrides that take precedence over the global config
In CI, pass them directly as pipeline environment variables or secrets. See CI Integration for examples.
Never commit API keys to version control. Add .env to your .gitignore.

​
LLM provider

VariableRequiredDescription
LLM_PROVIDERYesThe LLM provider to use. Accepted values: openai, anthropic, gemini, azure.
OPENAI_API_KEYIf using OpenAIAPI key for OpenAI.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYIf using AnthropicAPI key for Anthropic.
GEMINI_API_KEYIf using GeminiAPI key for Google Gemini.
AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEYIf using AzureAPI key for Azure OpenAI.
AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINTIf using AzureYour Azure OpenAI resource endpoint URL.
AZURE_OPENAI_DEPLOYMENTIf using AzureYour Azure OpenAI deployment name.

​
Search provider

Required only for rules that use the technical-accuracy evaluator. If not set, rules that depend on external lookup return reduced-confidence results.
VariableRequiredDescription
SEARCH_PROVIDERIf using technical-accuracySearch provider to use. Accepted value: perplexity.
PERPLEXITY_API_KEYIf using PerplexityAPI key for Perplexity search.

​
Evaluation behavior

VariableDefaultDescription
CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD0.75PAT pipeline confidence gate. Controls how strictly raw model candidates are filtered before surfacing violations. Accepted range: 0–1. Invalid values fall back to 0.75.
Lower values surface more findings (higher recall, more noise). Higher values surface fewer findings (higher precision, fewer false positives). See Tuning evaluation precision for guidance on when to adjust this.

​
Example configurations

​
OpenAI — global config.toml

[env]
LLM_PROVIDER = "openai"
OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."

​
Anthropic — project .env

LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

​
With search provider

[env]
LLM_PROVIDER = "openai"
OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."
SEARCH_PROVIDER = "perplexity"
PERPLEXITY_API_KEY = "pplx-..."

​
CI environment with higher confidence threshold

LLM_PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=${{ secrets.OPENAI_API_KEY }}
CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD=0.85

​
Precedence

When the same variable is set in multiple places, VectorLint resolves it in this order — highest precedence first:
  1. Project .env file
  2. Global ~/.vectorlint/config.toml
  3. System environment variables