Configuration Guide

To improve navigation, configuration docs are now split into an overview plus focused topic pages.

Navigation

• Startup Parameters
• Runtime Keys and API Workflow
• Security Best Practices
• Examples and Hot Reload
• Storage Overview
• Storage Backends
• Storage Selection and Benchmarks
• Storage Operations and Monitoring

Architecture

Shortlinker configuration has two layers:

• Startup config: stored in config.toml, changes require restart
• Runtime config: stored in DB, can be updated at runtime via Admin API/panel

config.toml (read at startup)
       ↓
StaticConfig (startup config, in-memory)
       ↓
Database (short links + runtime config)
       ↓
RuntimeConfig (runtime config cache, in-memory)
       ↓
Business logic (routes/auth/cache/etc)

On first startup, runtime defaults are initialized into DB based on built-in definitions; after that, DB values are authoritative.

Configuration Priority

1. Database (runtime config): api.* / routes.* / features.* / click.* / cors.* / analytics.* / utm.* / cache.*
2. Environment variables (startup overrides): SL__...
3. config.toml (startup config; e.g. [server] / [database] / [cache] / [logging] / [analytics] / [ipc])
4. Program defaults

Env vars only affect startup config. Runtime config is not auto-migrated from env vars or config.toml.

Next Steps

• 📋 Storage Overview
• 🚀 Deployment Guide
• 🛡️ Admin API
• 🏥 Health Check API