Configuration
Environment variables and configuration options for ARK CLI.
ARK CLI is configured through environment variables and graph manifest files. The setup is intentionally minimal: a single API key is all that's required to get started.
Environment Variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | Yes | Your Anthropic API key for Claude model access. |
Set the variable in your shell or in a .env file at the project root:
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."The environment is validated at startup using @t3-oss/env-core with Zod. If the key is missing or empty, the application will fail immediately with a descriptive error message.
The .env file is gitignored by default. Never commit your API key to version
control.
Graph Configuration
Knowledge graphs are configured through their graph.json manifest files in the data/ directory. See Custom Knowledge Graphs for the full schema reference.
Each graph directory is auto-discovered at startup. No additional configuration is needed to register a new graph.
Agent Configuration
The following agent parameters are set in the source code. They are tuned for biomedical knowledge graph exploration and apply to all graph agents:
| Parameter | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Claude (via @ai-sdk/anthropic) | The language model used for reasoning. |
| Max tool steps | 50 | Maximum tool calls per conversation turn. |
| Transport | DirectChatTransport | Streaming chat transport from @ai-tui/core. |
| Agent type | ToolLoopAgent | Vercel AI SDK agent with iterative tool calling. |