Environment Variables

These variables are read by the Graphnosis sidecar (graphnosis-sidecar). Set them in the env block of your MCP client config, or in your shell environment when running the sidecar directly.

Core

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GRAPHNOSIS_CORTEX_PATH	Yes	—	Absolute path to the Cortex folder. The sidecar will not start without this.
GRAPHNOSIS_PASSPHRASE	No	—	Unlock the Cortex non-interactively. Use only in trusted environments. If not set, the app prompts the user via the menu bar UI.
GRAPHNOSIS_GRAPHS	No	all graphs	Comma-separated list of graph names to expose via MCP. Unlisted graphs are invisible to AI clients. Example: work,research.

Embedding

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GRAPHNOSIS_EMBED_CONCURRENCY	No	2	Number of concurrent embedding worker processes. Increase on machines with more cores to speed up ingest.
GRAPHNOSIS_EMBED_MODEL_DIR	No	<cortex>/models	Override the directory where the ONNX embedding model is stored. Useful if you want to share the model cache across multiple Cortexes.

MCP server

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GRAPHNOSIS_MCP_TRANSPORT	No	stdio	Transport to use. Accepted values: stdio, unix. Use unix to listen on a Unix socket instead of stdio.
GRAPHNOSIS_MCP_SOCKET	No	~/.graphnosis/mcp.sock	Path for the Unix socket. Only used when GRAPHNOSIS_MCP_TRANSPORT=unix.

Corrections (Ollama)

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GRAPHNOSIS_OLLAMA_URL	No	http://localhost:11434	Base URL for the Ollama API. Override if Ollama is running on a different port or host.
GRAPHNOSIS_OLLAMA_MODEL	No	llama3.2:3b-instruct-q4_K_M	Ollama model to use for the correction diff flow. Must be pulled before use.

Logging

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GRAPHNOSIS_LOG_LEVEL	No	info	Log verbosity. Accepted values: error, warn, info, debug, trace.
GRAPHNOSIS_LOG_FILE	No	stderr	Absolute path to write log output. If not set, logs go to stderr (visible in the Tauri dev terminal).

Example: Claude Desktop config with env vars

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "graphnosis": {
      "command": "/Applications/Graphnosis.app/Contents/MacOS/graphnosis-sidecar",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"],
      "env": {
        "GRAPHNOSIS_CORTEX_PATH": "/Users/you/Documents/MyCortex",
        "GRAPHNOSIS_GRAPHS": "work,research",
        "GRAPHNOSIS_LOG_LEVEL": "warn"
      }
    }
  }
}

Security note on GRAPHNOSIS_PASSPHRASE

Passing your passphrase as an environment variable means it may be visible in process listings (ps aux) and in the MCP client config file on disk. Only use this in environments where you control the machine and trust the software reading the config. For interactive use, leave this variable unset and use the app’s unlock prompt instead.