Environment Variables

KnightCode uses environment variables in three ways:

• Variables such as KNIGHTCODE_OFFLINE configure the KnightCode process.
• KnightCode sets process markers so child processes can identify KnightCode as the launching agent.
• Commands run by the LLM-callable shell tools receive KNIGHTCODE_* variables describing the current session.

Provider API-key variables are documented separately in Providers.

Process Marker

The CLI and RPC entry points set two process markers:

• AI_AGENT=knightcode is a generic marker that lets tooling identify KnightCode as the agent that launched the process.
• KNIGHTCODE_CODING_AGENT=true is KnightCode-specific and lets child processes detect that they run inside KnightCode.

Child processes inherit both markers. They are not session-specific and are not set automatically when KnightCode is embedded through the SDK.

Shell Tool Session Environment

Commands run by the bash and powershell tools receive the current KnightCode session state:

The values are resolved when each command starts. Switching models or changing the reasoning level therefore affects the next shell command without restarting KnightCode. KNIGHTCODE_PROVIDER and KNIGHTCODE_MODEL identify the selected KnightCode model, not a different upstream model that a router may choose internally.

When asked which model or provider is running, inspect these variables instead of inferring the answer from the system prompt:

printf '%s/%s\n' "$KNIGHTCODE_PROVIDER" "$KNIGHTCODE_MODEL"
printf 'reasoning=%s session=%s\n' "$KNIGHTCODE_REASONING_LEVEL" "$KNIGHTCODE_SESSION_ID"

The session file can be inspected directly when the session is persistent:

if [ -n "$KNIGHTCODE_SESSION_FILE" ]; then
  tail -n 1 "$KNIGHTCODE_SESSION_FILE"
fi

These variables are injected into the LLM-callable bash and powershell tools. They are not injected into user-entered ! or !! commands.

Custom Shell Tools

Tools created with createBashTool() or createPowerShellTool() expose the session environment by default when registered with KnightCode. Injection happens before spawnHook, so a hook receives the variables in ctx.env:

const bashTool = createBashTool(cwd, {
  spawnHook: (ctx) => ({
    ...ctx,
    env: { ...ctx.env, CI: "1" },
  }),
});

Disable session metadata independently of the spawn hook:

const powershellTool = createPowerShellTool(cwd, {
  exposeSessionEnvironment: false,
  spawnHook: (ctx) => ctx,
});

When disabled, KnightCode removes inherited values for these variables so nested KnightCode processes do not expose stale parent-session metadata.

KnightCode Process Configuration

These variables are read by KnightCode itself:

Update controls

Automatic updates are on by default. For a persistent preference without environment variables, open /settings and set Automatic updates to false, or set "autoUpdate": false in your user-level settings.json; see Disable automatic updates for file locations and an example.

To use an environment variable instead, set it before launching KnightCode. For the current PowerShell terminal:

$env:KNIGHTCODE_DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE = "1"
knightcode

To persist it for your Windows user:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("KNIGHTCODE_DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE", "1", "User")

Then restart your terminal app or IDE so new KnightCode processes inherit it. On macOS or Linux, add this line to your shell profile (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc), then open a new terminal:

export KNIGHTCODE_DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE=1

This variable overrides autoUpdate: true. Any non-empty value disables automatic downloads, including 0; unset it to return control to settings.json. To suppress update notices and checks too, use KNIGHTCODE_SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1 instead. Explicit knightcode update remains available with either variable.

Provider credentials such as ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, and provider-specific configuration are listed in Providers.