Environment Variables¶

Complete reference of environment variables used by the LMS backend.

Required Variables¶

These must be set in all environments:

Variable	Description	Example
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string	`postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/lms`
`SECRET_KEY`	Django secret key (50+ random characters)	`django-insecure-...`
`PROVIDER_ENCRYPTION_KEY`	Fernet key for encrypting provider credentials	Generated via `Fernet.generate_key()`

Django Settings¶

Variable	Description	Default
`DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE`	Active settings module	`config.settings.development`
`DEBUG`	Enable debug mode	`False`
`ALLOWED_HOSTS`	Comma-separated allowed hosts	`localhost,127.0.0.1`
`LANGUAGE_CODE`	Default language	`en`
`TIME_ZONE`	Default timezone	`UTC`

Database¶

Variable	Description	Default
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string	(required)

The database URL is parsed by django-environ into Django's DATABASES setting. PostgreSQL 16+ is required for schema-per-tenant support.

Redis / Celery¶

Variable	Description	Default
`REDIS_URL`	Redis connection string	`redis://localhost:6379/0`
`CELERY_BROKER_URL`	Celery broker URL (defaults to `REDIS_URL`)	`redis://localhost:6379/0`
`CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND`	Celery result backend (defaults to `REDIS_URL`)	`redis://localhost:6379/0`

CORS¶

Variable	Description	Default
`CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS`	Comma-separated allowed origins	`http://localhost:5173,http://localhost:5174`

Authentication¶

Variable	Description	Default
`ACCOUNT_DEFAULT_HTTP_PROTOCOL`	Protocol for email links	`https`

AWS S3 (Document Storage)¶

Variable	Description	Required
`AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`	AWS access key	Production only
`AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`	AWS secret key	Production only
`AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME`	S3 bucket name	Production only
`AWS_S3_REGION_NAME`	S3 region	Production only

Email (SendGrid)¶

Variable	Description	Required
`SENDGRID_API_KEY`	SendGrid API key	Production only
`DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL`	Default sender email	Production only

SMS (Twilio)¶

Variable	Description	Required
`TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID`	Twilio account SID	Production only
`TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN`	Twilio auth token	Production only
`TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER`	Twilio sender number (E.164)	Production only

Security¶

Variable	Description	Default
`PROVIDER_ENCRYPTION_KEY`	Fernet key for provider credential encryption	(required)
`CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS`	Comma-separated trusted CSRF origins	Derived from `ALLOWED_HOSTS`
`SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT`	Redirect HTTP to HTTPS	`False` (dev), `True` (prod)
`SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE`	Secure flag on session cookie	`False` (dev), `True` (prod)
`CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE`	Secure flag on CSRF cookie	`False` (dev), `True` (prod)

Development-Only¶

Variable	Description	Default
`DJANGO_ALLOW_ASYNC_UNSAFE`	Allow sync ORM in async context (tests)	`False`
`EMAIL_BACKEND`	Email backend class	Console backend in dev

Warning

Never set DJANGO_ALLOW_ASYNC_UNSAFE=True in production. It is only for test environments where baker.make() (sync ORM) is used inside async test functions.

Generating Keys¶

Django Secret Key¶

python -c "from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())"

Provider Encryption Key¶

python -c "from cryptography.fernet import Fernet; print(Fernet.generate_key().decode())"