Complete reference for the INI configuration file that controls collections, server settings, and model behaviour.

The engine reads its configuration from ./data/config.ini on startup. The file uses standard INI syntax and is divided into three tiers:

Section	Purpose
`[DEFAULT]`	Shared defaults inherited by all sections
`[SERVER]` and `[LOGGING]`	Reserved system sections
Any other section name	Defines a collection

`[DEFAULT]`

[DEFAULT]
ModelDevice = auto

Key	Values	Description
`ModelDevice`	`auto`, `cpu`, `cuda`, `mps`, `cuda:N`	Device for CLIP inference. `auto` selects CUDA → MPS → CPU in that order.

`[SERVER]`

[SERVER]
Host = 127.0.0.1
Port = 8000
Reload = False

Key	Default	Description
`Host`	`127.0.0.1`	Bind address for the uvicorn server
`Port`	`8000`	TCP port
`Reload`	`False`	Enable hot-reload for development (`True` / `False`)

`[LOGGING]`

[LOGGING]
Level = INFO

Key	Default	Description
`Level`	`INFO`	Python logging level (`DEBUG`, `INFO`, `WARNING`, `ERROR`)

Collection sections

Each named section (other than DEFAULT, SERVER, LOGGING) defines one collection. The section name becomes the collection identifier used in API requests.

[my_collection]
Enabled = True
IndexType = faiss
EmbeddingsFile = ./data/my_collection/embeddings.zarr.zip
CLIPIndexFile  = ./data/my_collection/index.faiss
DatabaseFile   = ./data/my_collection/collection.db
ThumbnailMediaURL = https://cdn.example.com/thumbs/
OriginalMediaURL  = https://cdn.example.com/originals/
LogDirectory   = ./logs/my_collection/

Collection keys

Key	Required	Description
`Enabled`	Yes	`True` to load the collection at startup; `False` to skip it
`IndexType`	Yes	`zarr` or `faiss` — selects the vector index backend
`EmbeddingsFile`	Yes	Path to the Zarr archive (`.zarr.zip`) containing item embeddings
`DatabaseFile`	Yes	Path to the SQLite database for this collection
`ThumbnailMediaURL`	Yes	Base URL prepended to thumbnail URIs returned by the API
`OriginalMediaURL`	Yes	Base URL prepended to full-resolution URIs
`CLIPIndexFile`	FAISS only	Path to the `.faiss` index file — required when `IndexType = faiss`
`LogDirectory`	No	Directory for audit log files. Audit logging is disabled if omitted

Index types

`zarr` — brute-force search

The EmbeddingsFile Zarr archive is loaded into memory and searched exhaustively via dot-product similarity, parallelised across CPU threads. No separate index file is needed.

Use zarr for smaller collections (up to a few hundred thousand items) or when you want exact nearest-neighbour results.

[small_collection]
Enabled = True
IndexType = zarr
EmbeddingsFile = ./data/small/embeddings.zarr.zip
DatabaseFile   = ./data/small/collection.db
ThumbnailMediaURL = https://cdn.example.com/small/thumbs/
OriginalMediaURL  = https://cdn.example.com/small/originals/

`faiss` — approximate nearest-neighbour search

A pre-built FAISS index (IVF or HNSW) is loaded alongside the embeddings file. Searches are approximate but orders of magnitude faster for large collections. The index supports incremental search, automatically expanding the probe range when fewer than n results survive the skip and filter steps.

[large_collection]
Enabled = True
IndexType = faiss
EmbeddingsFile = ./data/large/embeddings.zarr.zip
CLIPIndexFile  = ./data/large/index.faiss
DatabaseFile   = ./data/large/collection.db
ThumbnailMediaURL = https://cdn.example.com/large/thumbs/
OriginalMediaURL  = https://cdn.example.com/large/originals/

Full example

[DEFAULT]
ModelDevice = auto

[SERVER]
Host = 0.0.0.0
Port = 8000
Reload = False

[LOGGING]
Level = INFO

[videos_2024]
Enabled = True
IndexType = faiss
EmbeddingsFile = ./data/videos_2024/embeddings.zarr.zip
CLIPIndexFile  = ./data/videos_2024/index.faiss
DatabaseFile   = ./data/videos_2024/metadata.db
ThumbnailMediaURL = https://cdn.example.com/videos_2024/thumbs/
OriginalMediaURL  = https://cdn.example.com/videos_2024/originals/
LogDirectory   = ./logs/videos_2024/

[photos_archive]
Enabled = True
IndexType = zarr
EmbeddingsFile = ./data/photos/embeddings.zarr.zip
DatabaseFile   = ./data/photos/metadata.db
ThumbnailMediaURL = https://cdn.example.com/photos/thumbs/
OriginalMediaURL  = https://cdn.example.com/photos/originals/