Environment variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
OPENGIST_URL	yes	—	Root URL of the instance, e.g. https://gist.example.com
OPENGIST_TOKEN	yes	—	Personal Access Token, starts with og_
OPENGIST_READ_ONLY	no	false	true registers only the eight read tools
OPENGIST_INSECURE_TLS	no	false	true accepts self-signed certificates on the Opengist connection only

Only the exact string true enables a boolean. 1, yes and TRUE are false.

OPENGIST_URL

The root of the instance, not the API path. A trailing slash is stripped, and a trailing /api is accepted and removed rather than producing /api/api.

The server exits at startup if the value is not a valid URL, uses a protocol other than http:/https:, or contains a username or password. It warns and continues for plain http:// to a non-loopback host — the token and every gist would travel unencrypted.

OPENGIST_TOKEN

Created in the web UI under Settings → Access Tokens. Scopes: gist:read, gist:write, user:read, and user:write for set_gist_like. See Configuration — a token without gist:read does not fail, it silently returns only public gists.

The value is read once at startup and then removed from process.env, so it is not inherited by child processes and does not appear in /proc/<pid>/environ.

A token that does not start with og_ produces a warning: the usual cause is an account password pasted in its place.

OPENGIST_READ_ONLY

true means create_gist, update_gist, delete_gist_files, delete_gist, fork_gist and set_gist_like are never registered. The model does not see them.

This is a guard rail in this process, not a boundary — the boundary is the token's scopes. See Security.

OPENGIST_INSECURE_TLS

true disables certificate validation for connections to OPENGIST_URL only, through a dedicated undici dispatcher. NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED is never set, so no other request the process makes is affected, and the relaxed dispatcher is only selected when the request origin matches the configured instance.

Prefer installing the CA certificate in the system trust store, or NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS, where that is possible.

Starting without credentials

If OPENGIST_URL or OPENGIST_TOKEN is missing, the server prints the setup instructions to stderr and still starts. It completes the MCP handshake and answers tools/list; every tool call then fails with the same instructions without making a request.

This is deliberate: registries and sandbox inspectors start the server without secrets, and could not enumerate the tool surface otherwise.