Environment variables

Required

Variable	Notes
GITHUB_TOKEN	Fine-grained PAT, single repo, Contents: Read and write
COMMENTS_REPO	owner/repo for comment data
COMMENTS_SECRET	At least 32 bytes, HKDF master secret
SELF_ORIGIN	Public URL of this service, no trailing slash
ALLOWED_ORIGINS	Comma-separated blog origins
TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY	Optional. Setting it enables verification
TURNSTILE_SECRET	Optional. Must be set together with the site key

Turnstile is optional: leave both empty to disable verification; setting only one is a configuration error and health reports degraded. It is independent of moderation.

Moderation and mail

Variable	Default	Required when	Notes
MODERATION_REQUIRED	true	never	false writes directly
MODERATOR_EMAIL	—	moderation on	Review recipient
MAIL_PROVIDER	auto	never	resend or mailport
RESEND_API_KEY	—	moderation on with Resend
RESEND_FROM	—	with the API key	Name <addr@domain>
MAILPORT_BASE_URL	—	moderation on with MailPort	no trailing slash
MAILPORT_PID	—	with MailPort	5–10 character route id
MAILPORT_API_KEY	—	with MailPort	32-character key

Selection: explicit MAIL_PROVIDER wins; otherwise Resend, then MailPort; if both are configured Resend wins.

Optional

Variable	Default	Notes
COMMENTS_BRANCH	main	Target branch
COMMENTS_PATH	comments	Directory in the repo
SELF_REPO	empty	Used only for the same-repo warning

There is no SAME_REPO switch. COMMENTS_REPO expresses it.

Startup validation

Incomplete configuration never crashes the service:

• /api/health returns 503 with degraded
• Endpoints that need the missing values return 503
• Other endpoints keep working