Configuration

Sereal is configured entirely through .env.local. Copy .env.example and fill it in. This page explains what each variable is for; the example file is the canonical list.

Boolean flags are strict. SELF_HOSTED, PUBLIC_SIGNUP_ENABLED, BILLING_ENABLED, and DEMO_TENANT_ENABLED accept only true, false, 1, or 0. Any other value ("True", "yes", an empty trailing space) throws at startup by design — see lib/config.ts. Fail fast beats quiet misconfig.

Required — Supabase

Variable	Purpose
`NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL`	Project URL. Browser-safe.
`NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY`	Anon public key. Browser-safe.
`SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY`	Service-role key. Server-only — never exposed to the browser.
`SUPABASE_URL`	Same value as `NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL`; used by seed/bootstrap scripts.

Required — owner account

Variable	Purpose
`OWNER_EMAIL` / `OWNER_PASSWORD`	The account the bootstrap script creates and you log in with.
`PLATFORM_OWNER_EMAIL`	Gates instance-level metadata (the `db_backups` view in Account). For single-tenant self-host, set it equal to `OWNER_EMAIL`. Leave blank to fail closed.

Required — security

Variable	Purpose
`CRON_SECRET`	Shared secret validating `/api/cron/*` requests. Generate with `openssl rand -hex 32`.

Self-host flags

Defaults preserve cloud behavior; for a personal install you'll typically set:

SELF_HOSTED=true            # disables signup, billing, and shared-key paths
PUBLIC_SIGNUP_ENABLED=false # signup is invite-only; not used on self-host
BILLING_ENABLED=false       # no billing code path
DEMO_TENANT_ENABLED=false   # no demo tenant on a personal install

Optional — eBay

Variable	Purpose
`EBAY_APP_ID` / `EBAY_CERT_ID`	Your own eBay app credentials. Leave blank to run without deal-watching, Scout, and comp lookup. Sereal will not ship shared credentials (ADR-001).

Optional — email and comps

Variable	Purpose
`RESEND_API_KEY` or `SMTP_HOST` / `SMTP_PORT` / `SMTP_USER` / `SMTP_PASS`	Outbound email for the daily deal digest. Skip entirely and the app still runs; you just get no email summaries.
`DEAL_ALERT_EMAIL`	Where the deal digest is sent.
`SOLDCOMPS_API_KEY`	External sold-comp data source; not required for core flows.
`NEXT_PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_SRC`	Analytics override for public funnel pages. Public client-side config, not a secret; loads only in production.

Verifying configuration

The health check reflects config state directly:

curl -sf http://localhost:3000/api/health | jq .checks.env

"ok" means every required variable is present and parseable. "fail" means something is missing or empty — and if you edited .env.local on Windows, a BOM or CRLF line ending can break parsing (dos2unix .env.local).