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Configuration›Configuration

Configuration Overview

TalkOps is designed to work out of the box with sensible defaults while giving you full control over your models, cloud targets, approval rules, and DevOps tools. You can configure TalkOps interactively inside the terminal UI (TUI), through environment variables, or in a persistent ~/.talkops/config.toml file.

Configuration Priority​

When the same setting is defined in more than one place, TalkOps resolves it in the following order (from highest priority to lowest):

  1. CLI Flags & Live Slash Commands (Highest Priority) Flags passed when launching talkops (such as talkops -M openai:gpt-5.2) or slash commands run during a live TUI session (such as /model, /approval, /cloud, or /config set).
  2. Environment Variables & .env Files Variables exported in your shell (export AWS_REGION=us-west-2) or loaded from .env files.
  3. TOML Configuration (~/.talkops/config.toml) Your persistent user configuration file on disk.
  4. Built-in Defaults (Lowest Priority) Safe fallback values shipped with TalkOps (such as manual approval mode and local sandbox execution).

Managing Settings in the TUI (/config)​

You don't need to edit configuration files by hand to customize TalkOps. Inside an interactive session, use the /config command to inspect or update settings on the fly:

CommandDescription
/config (or /config show)Opens the interactive Configuration Manager modal, where you can browse settings by category, edit values, and see whether each value comes from your environment, config.toml, or built-in defaults.
/config set <key> <value>Updates a setting immediately and saves it (for example, /config set security.approval_mode smart or /config set aws.region us-west-2).
/config reset <key>Removes a custom override and restores the setting to its built-in default (for example, /config reset aws.region).
/config pathDisplays the exact file paths for your active config.toml, .env file, and local state database.
/reloadHot-reloads changes made to ~/.talkops/config.toml or .env files on disk without restarting your session.

Dedicated Shortcut Commands​

For the settings you change most often, TalkOps also provides dedicated slash commands with interactive modals:

  • /model — Switch your active LLM or save a default model.
  • /effort — Adjust model reasoning effort (low, medium, high, max).
  • /pool — Configure the Fast, Standard, and Powerful model tiers used in Smart Mode.
  • /approval — Switch between manual, smart, auto, and yolo approval modes.
  • /permissions — Manage permanent Allow, Ask, and Deny rules for tools and shell commands.
  • /cloud (plus /aws, /azure, /gcp, /k8s) — Switch active cloud profiles, regions, Kubernetes contexts, and execution modes (read-only vs. elevated).
  • /auth (or /login) — Manage API keys for model providers, TypeSafe AI, and the TalkOps Control Plane.

Configuration Categories at a Glance​

All settings in the /config manager and ~/.talkops/config.toml are organized into logical groups:

CategoryKey PrefixWhat It Controls
Credentialscredentials.*API keys for LLM providers (anthropic, openai, google, etc.) and TYPESAFE_API_KEY.
Cloud Contextcloud.*Active cloud provider (aws, azure, gcp, k8s), target profile, and execution mode (elevated or read_only).
AWSaws.*Default AWS profile (AWS_PROFILE), region (AWS_REGION), and optional IAM role ARN (AWS_ROLE_ARN).
Azureazure.*Subscription ID, Tenant ID, default location, resource group, and service principal Client ID.
Google Cloudgcp.*Project ID (GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT), active gcloud configuration, region, and service account key file.
Kubernetesk8s.*Active kubeconfig context (KUBE_CONTEXT), default namespace (KUBE_NAMESPACE), and KUBECONFIG path.
DevOps Toolsdevops.*Terraform workspace & CLI args, Helm namespace & storage driver, Docker host, GitHub token, and observability URLs (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog).
Models & Poolmodels.*Default model (provider:model), recent model, reasoning effort ([effort]), and 3-tier model pool ([agent_pool]).
Securitysecurity.*Tool approval mode (manual, smart, auto, yolo) and shell command allow-lists.
Sandboxessandboxes.*Default execution sandbox (local, daytona, modal, runloop) and workspace syncing.
Interpreterinterpreter.*Embedded Python interpreter limits (timeout, memory limit, and programmatic tool calling mode).
Startupstartup.*Whether to automatically load a .env file from your current working directory (read_project_dotenv).
Display & UIui.*TUI theme, message timestamps, turn duration display, auto-scroll, desktop notifications, and auto-compaction.
Webhookswebhooks.*Signing secrets for incoming GitHub, PagerDuty, Alertmanager, and Slack webhooks.
Tracingtracing.*Optional LangSmith tracing (LANGSMITH_TRACING_V2, LANGSMITH_API_KEY, LANGSMITH_PROJECT).

For a complete list of every TOML key, environment variable, and default value, see the config.toml Reference.

Using .env Files​

In addition to ~/.talkops/config.toml, TalkOps automatically loads environment variables from .env files on startup in the following order (higher entries win):

  1. Exported Shell Variables (export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=... in your terminal)
  2. Project .talkops/.env (<current-directory>/.talkops/.env)
  3. Global ~/.talkops/.env (automatically kept in sync when you save keys via /auth or talkops auth set)
  4. Project .env (<current-directory>/.env, enabled when startup.read_project_dotenv = true)

If you work on repos that have their own application .env files and you don't want TalkOps to read them automatically, run /config set startup.read_project_dotenv false or set READ_PROJECT_DOTENV=false.

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