Environment Variables

Copy .env.example to .env.local and populate all required variables before running npm run dev.

Auth — Clerk

Variable	Required	Description
`NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY`	✅	Publishable key from the Clerk dashboard
`CLERK_SECRET_KEY`	✅	Secret key from the Clerk dashboard
`NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_IN_URL`	✅	Set to `/sign-in`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_UP_URL`	✅	Set to `/sign-up`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_AFTER_SIGN_IN_URL`	✅	Set to `/arena`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_AFTER_SIGN_UP_URL`	✅	Set to `/arena`

Get your keys at clerk.com → your application → API Keys.

Variable	Required	Description
`DATABASE_URL`	✅	PostgreSQL connection string

A Neon free-tier database works well. Format: postgresql://user:password@host/dbname?sslmode=require

After setting this, run:

npx prisma migrate dev

Variable	Required	Description
`RYO_API_URL`	✅	Base URL for the Ryo MCP API (default: `https://app-ryochan.com/api/mcp`)
`RYO_API_KEY`	✅	Bearer token for authenticating MCP tool calls

All six personas use the Ryo MCP API to fetch market data. Without this, no debates can run.

Variable	Required	Description
`MIXROUTE_API_KEY`	✅	API key for the MixRoute proxy (`gpt-4o-mini`)

Used by src/lib/llm.ts → askPersona(). MixRoute proxies OpenAI-compatible requests.

Variable	Required	Description
`TAVILY_API_KEY`	✅	Tavily search API key

Used by the Narrative persona via webSearch() in src/server/mcp/tools.ts. Get a key at tavily.com.

Variable	Required	Description
`GMAIL_USER`	⚠️	Gmail address used as the sender for alert emails
`GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD`	⚠️	App-specific password (not your main Gmail password)

⚠️ Required only for email notification alerts.

To generate a Gmail app password:

Variable	Required	Description
`INNGEST_SIGNING_KEY`	⚠️	Signing key for Inngest webhook verification

⚠️ Required in production. Not needed for local development with npm run inngest.

Get from inngest.com → your app → Keys.