Environment & paths

A reference for the environment and file paths Magic Coder uses. For the conceptual breakdown of where things live, see Configuration overview.

Environment variables

Magic Coder is flag-driven for runtime arguments — there are no CODER_* or MAGIC_CODER_* variables you set to change CLI behavior. The few environment variables Magic Coder cares about are limited to install-time and a single internal cap.

Runtime

Variable	Used by	Purpose
`MAGIC_CODER_OAUTH_TOKEN`	the running `coder` binary	Opaque OAuth access-token override. Bypasses both the file and the OS keychain; not refreshed by the CLI. Useful for CI and other headless flows.
`CODER_MAX_CHAT_MESSAGES`	the running `coder` binary	Hard cap on the number of transcript messages kept in memory (default 1000). Tune up or down for very long sessions.

What’s not an env var

These are configured by flags or files, not env vars:

Working directory, workspace roots, server URL, OIDC client ID — all flags.
Default model, reasoning effort, theme, long-context preference, sleep mode — all live in ~/.magic/config.toml.
Sign-in credentials — stored by Magic Coder in the OS keychain (or fallback file). See Sign in.
Command permissions — managed through the approval prompt; see Command permissions.

Path map

User-level (per machine, per user)

~/.magic/config.toml             User config (machine ID, generation defaults, UI prefs)
~/.magic/known.toml              Workspace registry (paths and trust state)
~/.magic/known/<key>/history.jsonl    Per-workspace input history
~/.magic/skills/<name>/SKILL.md       User-level skills (loaded on every session)
~/.magic/rules/<category>/<name>.md   User-level Markdown rules (loaded on every session)
~/.magic/cache/                  Internal cache (incl. background shells)
~/.magic/locks/                  Lock files

Per-project (in your repo)

<workspace>/.magic/skills/<name>/SKILL.md     Project-local skills (loaded only when trusted)
<workspace>/.magic/rules/<category>/<name>.md Project-local Markdown rules (loaded only when trusted)
<workspace>/AGENTS.md                         Root project context
<workspace>/<subdir>/AGENTS.md                Per-package project context (loaded on demand)

OS-managed

OS	Primary store	Fallback file
macOS	Keychain — service `magic-coder-credentials`, account = your macOS username	—
Linux	Secret Service / GNOME Keyring	`~/.config/magic-coder/credentials.json`
Windows	—	`%APPDATA%\magic-coder\credentials.json`

The lookup order at startup is MAGIC_CODER_OAUTH_TOKEN → fallback file → OS keychain. You don’t edit these directly; /logout clears the active store.

Derived URLs

When you pass --server-url <host> (default deployment otherwise), Magic Coder derives:

URL	Pattern
WebSocket	`wss://ws.coder.<host>`
OIDC issuer	`https://auth.<host>`
API base	`https://api.<host>`

You don’t usually need to know these — pass --server-url once and Magic Coder figures out the rest.

Reset checklist

To completely reset Magic Coder on a machine:

# 1. Sign out from inside the TUI (clears the saved credential)
/logout
/exit

# 2. Remove user state
rm -rf ~/.magic

Per-project .magic/ directories inside your repos are not touched.