Configuration

Most day-to-day settings live in the panel UI under Admin → System/Settings. Infrastructure behavior (ports, database URLs, feature flags) is controlled by environment variables on the backend container.

The two layers

Layer	Where	Examples
Panel settings	Admin UI	Panel name, registration policy, mail, backups, limits
Environment	Compose file / container env	DATABASE_URL, Redis URL, ports, DOCS_ENABLED, rate-limit and payload tunables

Change panel settings in the UI whenever possible — they validate input and take effect without restarts. Touch environment variables when the setting you need is not in the UI, and restart the backend container afterwards.

Rules

1. Do not edit the database by hand. Every supported change has a UI field, an API endpoint, or a documented variable. Raw SQL edits bypass validation and break upgrades (updating).
2. Keep secrets out of chat and screenshots. Database passwords, API keys, and node tokens live in your compose .env, never in docs or tickets.
3. Record what you changed. A one-line note (what, when, why) saves hours during the next incident.

Reference

• Environment variable details: see docs/environment-variables.md in the main Catalyst repository (contributor reference).
• Database and cache tuning: storage.
• TLS and proxy headers: networking.