configuration.md

Configuration

The backend reads its settings from environment variables, or from a .env file in the backend/ directory.

Settings

Variable	Default	Description
DATABASE_URL	sqlite+aiosqlite:///./todos.db	SQLAlchemy async database URL.
CORS_ORIGINS	["http://localhost:5173", "http://localhost:3000"]	JSON list of origins allowed to call the API from a browser.
ARCHIVE_RETENTION_DAYS	30	Days to keep archived todos before the nightly cleanup deletes them.

Example backend/.env:

DATABASE_URL=sqlite+aiosqlite:///./data/todos.db
CORS_ORIGINS=["https://todos.example.com"]
ARCHIVE_RETENTION_DAYS=60

Archived todo retention

Archiving a todo hides it from the default list but keeps the row. The purge_archived job removes archived todos once they are older than ARCHIVE_RETENTION_DAYS.

Run it manually from the backend/ directory:

python -m app.jobs.purge_archived --retention-days 14

The repository also ships a scheduled GitHub Actions workflow, .github/workflows/nightly-cleanup.yml, that runs the job every day at 03:00 UTC. Set the DATABASE_URL repository variable to point it at your database.

Frontend

The frontend calls the API through the relative path /api. In development, Vite proxies it to http://localhost:8000. In production, nginx proxies it to the backend service, see frontend/nginx.conf.