Configure Strata

Goal. Know where each setting lives and which layer wins. About three minutes.

Per-database settings are flags, not config

Durability, sharing, read-only, and the default branch and space are chosen when you open the database, not stored in it:

strata --durability always --read-only ./mydb kv get k

There is no config file for these, because two processes can legitimately open the same database with different ones. Global options documents each.

One caveat that catches people: when a process brokers to a host, the host’s durability governs the write, not the client’s. A client passing --durability always against a default host gets the host’s mode and is not told. Read durability off the commit receipt rather than trusting the flag. Durability covers what that costs.

The global config is for credentials and the hub

strata config path
strata config get

The file holds inference provider keys and the hub URL, and nothing about any particular database:

strata config set openai.api_key sk-...
strata config get-key openai.api_key

Keys print redacted, and the file is written with owner-only permissions.

strata config unset openai.api_key

Environment wins

A provider’s own environment variable overrides the file:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

That is the order to remember: environment, then file. It is what makes CI work without writing a key to disk.

STRATA_DB sets a default database path the same way, so a shell that exports it can drop the path argument entirely.

Checking what is in effect

strata inference status

build	cloud providers only

providers
  openai	ready -- key from ~/.config/strata/config.toml; use openai:<model>
  anthropic	no key -- `strata config set anthropic.api_key <key>`
  google	no key -- `strata config set google.api_key <key>`
  local	not in this build

That names the layer each key came from, which is the question you have when a key is set and inference still fails.

strata config show

Does the same for the hub configuration.

Failure modes

A key is set and inference still says it is missing. An environment variable is overriding the file with an empty or stale value. inference status names the layer in use.

A config edit did nothing. Check strata config path. There is one global file, not a per-project one.

Provider keys vanished. A malformed config file can cause a stored key to be dropped silently. This is tracked as strata-core issue 3296, and strata config get is the way to confirm what survived.

Next

Inspect database health.