Frontend Configuration

The frontend is configured through environment variables. The canonical list and defaults live in frontend/.env.example.

Build-time vs runtime

This is the most important distinction:

• VITE_* and SENTRY_* variables are inlined at build time. They are baked into the JavaScript bundle when vite build runs. Changing them requires rebuilding the image.
• BACKEND_ORIGIN is the only runtime variable. It is read by nginx at container start (via envsubst) to decide where to proxy /api/. You can change it without rebuilding.

Why the API base URL is relative

The published image is built with VITE_API_BASE_URL=/api/v1 so requests are same-origin. The backend location is chosen at deploy time through BACKEND_ORIGIN, keeping a single image deployment-agnostic. Do not hardcode a backend origin into the build. See Building & Serving.

Backend API

Variable	Default	Notes
VITE_API_BASE_URL	/api/v1 (image build)	Backend API base, including version prefix. Leave relative for same-origin requests behind the nginx proxy. The local-dev .env.example points it at http://localhost:8080/api/v1.
BACKEND_ORIGIN	http://backend:8080	Runtime. nginx reverse-proxy target for /api/. Set per deployment.

Branding / site links

All optional, with neutral defaults.

Variable	Notes
VITE_SITE_NAME	Product / brand display name.
VITE_SITE_LEGAL_NAME	Legal entity name in copyright notices (defaults to VITE_SITE_NAME).
VITE_SITE_URL	Public marketing / home site URL.
VITE_TERMS_URL	Terms & Conditions page (defaults to <VITE_SITE_URL>/terms-and-conditions).
VITE_PRIVACY_URL	Privacy Policy page (defaults to <VITE_SITE_URL>/privacy-policy).
VITE_SUPPORT_EMAIL	Support contact email.
VITE_BRAND_LOGO_URL	Absolute URL to the brand logo (OpenGraph image on shared pages).

MCP

Variable	Notes
VITE_MCP_ENDPOINT	The MCP endpoint advertised in client-setup snippets, e.g. https://<your-mcp-host>/mcp/v1/common.

Error reporting / problem details

Variable	Notes
VITE_ERROR_TYPE_BASE_URI	Base URI for building RFC 9457 problem-detail type fields client-side (e.g. <base>/errors/UNKNOWN). Empty falls back to about:blank.

Analytics (Google Tag Manager / GA4)

Disabled by default — must be explicitly enabled.

Variable	Default	Notes
VITE_GTM_ENABLED	false	Set to true to enable GTM.
VITE_GTM_ID	—	GTM container ID (e.g. GTM-XXXXXXX). Empty disables GTM.
VITE_GA4_MEASUREMENT_ID	—	GA4 Measurement ID (e.g. G-XXXXXXXXXX) for client-ID capture.

Sentry (error monitoring)

Optional.

Variable	When	Notes
VITE_SENTRY_DSN	runtime DSN (build-inlined)	Empty disables Sentry.
SENTRY_ORG	build only	Source-map upload.
SENTRY_PROJECT	build only	Source-map upload.
SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN	build only (CI)	Source-map upload.

Note

All three of SENTRY_ORG, SENTRY_PROJECT, and SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN must be set for source maps to be uploaded at build time. They are not VITE_* because they are not inlined into the bundle. See Building & Serving for the upload-then-delete flow.

Firebase Cloud Messaging (web push)

Browser push notifications are disabled unless all of these are set. The on-demand firebase-messaging-sw.js service worker is only registered when Firebase is fully configured — there is no precaching service worker.

Variable
VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY
VITE_FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN
VITE_FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID
VITE_FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET
VITE_FIREBASE_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID
VITE_FIREBASE_APP_ID
VITE_FIREBASE_VAPID_KEY

Related

• Frontend Overview
• Building & Serving
• Backend Configuration