Configuration

All BrainLayer configuration is via environment variables. No config files needed.

Environment Variables

Core

Variable	Default	Description
BRAINLAYER_DB	~/.local/share/brainlayer/brainlayer.db	Database file path. Set to override the default location.

Enrichment

Variable	Default	Description
BRAINLAYER_ENRICH_BACKEND	auto-detect	LLM backend: mlx, ollama, or Gemini realtime where the controller explicitly uses the Google API. Auto-detects Apple Silicon → MLX, else Ollama for local enrichment flows.
BRAINLAYER_ENRICH_MODEL	glm-4.7-flash	Ollama model name for enrichment
BRAINLAYER_MLX_MODEL	mlx-community/Qwen2.5-Coder-14B-Instruct-4bit	MLX model identifier
BRAINLAYER_OLLAMA_URL	http://127.0.0.1:11434/api/generate	Ollama API endpoint
BRAINLAYER_MLX_URL	http://127.0.0.1:8080/v1/chat/completions	MLX server endpoint
GOOGLE_API_KEY	(empty)	Google AI API key used by realtime Gemini enrichment and the enrichment LaunchAgent installer
BRAINLAYER_STALL_TIMEOUT	300	Seconds before killing a stuck enrichment chunk
BRAINLAYER_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL	25	Log progress every N chunks during enrichment

Privacy

Variable	Default	Description
BRAINLAYER_SANITIZE_EXTRA_NAMES	(empty)	Comma-separated names to redact from indexed content
BRAINLAYER_SANITIZE_USE_SPACY	true	Use spaCy NER for PII detection during indexing

Database Location

The database path is resolved in this order:

1. BRAINLAYER_DB environment variable (highest priority)
2. Canonical path ~/.local/share/brainlayer/brainlayer.db (default)

Data Sources

BrainLayer reads from these locations by default:

Source	Location
Claude Code conversations	~/.claude/projects/
Deduplicated system prompts	~/.local/share/brainlayer/prompts/
Daemon socket	/tmp/brainlayer.sock
Enrichment lock	/tmp/brainlayer-enrichment.lock

Scheduled Tasks (macOS)

BrainLayer includes launchd plist templates for automated operation:

Service	Schedule	Description
com.brainlayer.index	Every 30 minutes	Incremental indexing of new conversations
com.brainlayer.enrichment	Every hour	Run realtime Gemini enrichment against recent chunks

Install with:

brainlayer init  # Includes launchd setup option

Manual install and control:

bash scripts/launchd/install.sh enrichment
bash scripts/launchd/install.sh unload enrichment
bash scripts/launchd/install.sh load enrichment

The enrichment agent renders to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.brainlayer.enrichment.plist, reads GOOGLE_API_KEY from the current environment or ~/.zshrc at install time, and logs to ~/Library/Logs/brainlayer-enrichment.log.