settings

Recipe card from the charly-build plugin (Commands — runtime CLI verbs).

charly settings – Runtime Configuration

Overview

Manage charly’s runtime configuration stored in ~/.config/charly/config.yml. Controls engine selection, networking, storage paths, secret backend, and agent forwarding.

charly settings is a compiled-in COMMAND-class plugin (candy/plugin-settings, command:settings) that OWNS the command AND the config subsystem: the get/set/list/reset/path subcommand grammar + output formatting live in candy/plugin-settings/{command.go,provider.go,plugin.go}, and the runtime-config file I/O lives in candy/plugin-settings/config.go — GetConfigValue / SetConfigValue / ListConfigValues / ResetConfigValue / resolveSettingsGet, over spec/hostenv.RuntimeConfigPath() for ~/.config/charly/config.yml (the former charly/runtime_config.go is DELETED, K-wave 2). resolveSettingsGet resolves the get special-cases in-package: engine.* via ResolveRuntime, and secret_backend / vnc.password.* via InvokeProvider(verb:credential) — there is no "settings" HostBuild seam (the former charly/host_build_settings.go is DELETED, K-wave 2). settings is compiled into the charly binary (charly/charly.yml compiled_plugins:) so its Invoke(OpRun) can serve verb:credential over the in-proc reverse channel; the out-of-process path has no reverse channel and errors. There is no hidden core-command forward.

Quick Reference

Action	Command	Description
Get a setting	charly settings get <key>	Show current value
Set a setting	charly settings set <key> <value>	Update a setting
List all	charly settings list	Show all settings with values
Reset to default	charly settings reset <key>	Remove override, use default
Config path	charly settings path	Print path to config.yml
Migrate secrets	charly secrets migrate-secrets [--dry-run]	Move plaintext credentials to keyring (externalized to candy/plugin-secrets)

Key Settings

Key	Default	Env Var	Description
engine.build	auto	CHARLY_BUILD_ENGINE	Build engine (docker/podman)
engine.run	auto	CHARLY_RUN_ENGINE	Run engine (docker/podman)
run_mode	auto	CHARLY_RUN_MODE	Deployment mode (quadlet/direct)
bind_address	127.0.0.1	CHARLY_BIND_ADDRESS	Default bind address for ports
encrypted_storage_path	~/.local/share/charly/encrypted	CHARLY_ENCRYPTED_STORAGE_PATH	Base path for gocryptfs volumes
volumes_path	~/.local/share/charly/volumes	CHARLY_VOLUMES_PATH	Base path for bind-mounted volumes
secret_backend	auto	CHARLY_SECRET_BACKEND	Credential backend (auto/keyring/config)
keyring_collection_label	(empty)	CHARLY_KEYRING_COLLECTION_LABEL	Preferred Secret Service collection label. Empty = iterate naturally (default alias → listing order). Set to pin charly to a specific collection in multi-database setups (e.g. KeePassXC with multiple open databases). See /charly-automation:enc for the full iteration order.
forward_gpg_agent	true	CHARLY_FORWARD_GPG_AGENT	Forward GPG agent into containers
forward_ssh_agent	true	CHARLY_FORWARD_SSH_AGENT	Forward SSH agent into containers
hosts.<alias>	(none)	—	SSH target for charly --host <alias> remote execution. Free-form: host, user@host, user@host:port. Consulted by the top-level --host flag to re-exec charly commands on another machine over SSH. See /charly-core:ssh.

Usage

Engine Selection

# Switch to podman for both build and run
charly settings set engine.build podman
charly settings set engine.run podman

# Check current engine
charly settings get engine.build

Storage Paths

# Change volume storage to NAS
charly settings set volumes_path /mnt/nas/charly-volumes

# Change encrypted storage location
charly settings set encrypted_storage_path /mnt/encrypted/charly

Secret Backend

# Force the Secret Service keyring backend (incl. KeePassXC via FdoSecrets)
charly settings set secret_backend keyring

# Force the config-file plaintext fallback (headless hosts)
charly settings set secret_backend config

# Migrate plaintext secrets from config.yml to the keyring (the credential
# store + secrets CLI are externalized into candy/plugin-secrets)
charly secrets migrate-secrets

# Preview migration without changes
charly secrets migrate-secrets --dry-run

Resolution Chain

Settings resolve in this order: environment variable > config.yml > default value.

Cross-References

• /charly-core:charly-config – deployment configuration (uses settings)
• /charly-build:secrets – credential management
• /charly-core:charly-doctor – diagnose settings and secret storage health
• /charly-automation:enc – encrypted volume paths