Configuration

Membrane is configured via a YAML file or command-line flags. Fields not present in the config file retain their default values.

Config File

Pass a config file with the -config flag:

./bin/membraned -config membrane.yaml

Full Example

# SQLite database path
db_path: /var/lib/membrane/data.db

# gRPC listen address
listen_addr: ":9090"

# How often the decay scheduler runs
decay_interval: 1h

# How often the consolidation scheduler runs
consolidation_interval: 6h

# Default sensitivity for ingested records
default_sensitivity: low

# Minimum confidence for the retrieval selector
selection_confidence_threshold: 0.7

# Security (keys should come from environment variables)
# encryption_key: ""       # or set MEMBRANE_ENCRYPTION_KEY
# api_key: ""              # or set MEMBRANE_API_KEY
# tls_cert_file: ""
# tls_key_file: ""
rate_limit_per_second: 100

Options Reference

db_path

• Type: string
• Default: "membrane.db"
• Description: Path to the SQLite database file. Created automatically if it does not exist.

listen_addr

• Type: string
• Default: ":9090"
• Description: Network address for the gRPC server to listen on. Use ":0" to let the OS pick a free port.

decay_interval

• Type: duration
• Default: 1h
• Description: How often the background decay scheduler runs. The scheduler applies the configured decay curve to all non-pinned records, reducing their salience over time. Shorter intervals mean more frequent decay updates; longer intervals reduce CPU usage.

consolidation_interval

• Type: duration
• Default: 6h
• Description: How often the background consolidation scheduler runs. Consolidation promotes episodic experience into semantic facts, competence records, and plan graphs. Shorter intervals mean faster learning; longer intervals reduce overhead.

default_sensitivity

• Type: string
• Default: "low"
• Values: public, low, medium, high, hyper
• Description: The sensitivity level assigned to ingested records when the ingest request does not specify one. See Security for details on sensitivity levels.

selection_confidence_threshold

• Type: float
• Default: 0.7
• Range: [0, 1]
• Description: Minimum confidence for the multi-solution selector. When the selector ranks competence or plan graph candidates, if confidence falls below this threshold the needs_more flag is set, signaling that additional information or user disambiguation may be needed. See Retrieval for details.

encryption_key

• Type: string
• Default: "" (no encryption)
• Env var: MEMBRANE_ENCRYPTION_KEY
• Description: SQLCipher encryption key for the database. When set, all data is encrypted at rest. If this field is empty, Membrane falls back to MEMBRANE_ENCRYPTION_KEY. See Security for details.

api_key

• Type: string
• Default: "" (authentication disabled)
• Env var: MEMBRANE_API_KEY
• Description: Shared secret for authenticating gRPC clients. Clients must send this as a Bearer token in the authorization metadata header. If this field is empty, Membrane falls back to MEMBRANE_API_KEY. See Security for details.

tls_cert_file

• Type: string
• Default: "" (TLS disabled)
• Description: Path to the TLS certificate PEM file. Both tls_cert_file and tls_key_file must be set for TLS to activate.

tls_key_file

• Type: string
• Default: "" (TLS disabled)
• Description: Path to the TLS private key PEM file. Both tls_cert_file and tls_key_file must be set for TLS to activate.

rate_limit_per_second

• Type: integer
• Default: 100
• Description: Maximum gRPC requests per second for the current daemon instance. Uses a token bucket algorithm. Set to 0 to disable rate limiting. Requests exceeding the limit receive a ResourceExhausted gRPC error.

Command-Line Overrides

Command-line flags override values from the config file:

Flag	Overrides	Description
-config	--	Path to YAML config file
-db	db_path	SQLite database path
-addr	listen_addr	gRPC listen address

Examples

# Use defaults
./bin/membraned

# Use a config file
./bin/membraned -config /etc/membrane/config.yaml

# Override specific values
./bin/membraned -config config.yaml -db /tmp/test.db -addr :8080

# No config file, just flags
./bin/membraned -db membrane.db -addr :9090

Duration Format

Duration values use Go's duration syntax:

Suffix	Meaning
s	seconds
m	minutes
h	hours

Examples: 30s, 5m, 1h, 2h30m