Configuration

One TOML file governs everything, versioned by the kp-config/v1 contract. A complete, working example ships at the repo root as curator.example.toml; curator init scaffolds from it.

Three binding rules:

1. Versioned via the top-level schema key.
2. Unknown keys warn, never fail — a config written for a newer minor version loads on an older binary.
3. Secrets only via env indirection — *_env keys name an environment variable; secret values never appear in the file.

Discovery

Every command takes --config <path>. Without it, Curator looks in order:

1. $CURATOR_CONFIG (preferred) or $KP_CONFIG — an explicit path;
2. ./curator.toml;
3. ./kp.toml — the legacy name, still accepted; loading it warns and suggests renaming. It is deprecated, not removed: existing setups keep working.

The full file

schema = "kp-config/v1"

[vault]
path = "~/vault"                 # the markdown corpus root
proposals_dir = ".kp/proposals"  # relative to vault

[index]
path = "~/.local/share/kp/index.db"   # ONE embedded SQLite db: vec + FTS5 + edges
embedder = "builtin"                  # builtin = in-process pinned CPU ONNX; or "hash" (test)
chunk_tokens = 512
chunk_overlap = 64

[curio]
enabled = false
events_dir = "~/.local/share/curio/events"   # tail target (rotation-aware cursors)
notes_dirs = ["curio"]                       # vault-relative dirs Curio exports into

[zotero]
enabled = false
api_base = "https://api.zotero.org"
user_id = ""
api_key_env = "KP_ZOTERO_KEY"    # never inline; CURATOR_ZOTERO_KEY preferred alias
webdav_fallback = false          # ~30-line CRC-verified .prop/.zip shim
webdav_url = ""

[librarian]
now_path = "now.md"              # interest anchor note (vault-relative)
digest_dir = "digests"           # vault-relative output dir (kp: namespace notes)
half_life_days = 14              # recency decay
top_k = 12

[mcp]
transport = "stdio"              # stdio (default) | http
http_bind = "127.0.0.1:8377"
bearer_token_env = "KP_MCP_TOKEN" # required when http; CURATOR_MCP_TOKEN preferred alias

Key by key

[vault]

[index]

Changing embedder (or chunking) changes the index epoch — run curator index rebuild (epochs, not migrations).

[curio]

[zotero]

[librarian]

[mcp]

Environment variables

Curator's original env names carry the KP_ prefix; every one has a preferred CURATOR_ alias. CURATOR_<X> wins when both are set; KP_<X> keeps working — existing deployments never break.

The *_env config keys name a variable of your choosing; the alias pairing applies to whatever name you configure, in both directions — a KP_<X>-named variable is also looked up as CURATOR_<X> (preferred) and vice versa. RUST_LOG additionally controls log verbosity (default warn, stderr).