Reference

Configuration

Knowit is configured through a handful of environment variables. Sensible defaults mean most projects need none of them.

Environment variables

Variable	Description
`KNOWIT_DB_PATH`	Path to the SQLite database for `global` or `custom` storage
`KNOWIT_STORAGE_SCOPE`	`project`, `global`, or `custom`
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	Enables semantic search via embeddings (see Semantic Search)
`KNOWIT_LOG_LEVEL`	`debug`, `info`, `warn`, or `error`
`NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER`	Set to `1` to disable the CLI's update notifications

The CLI loads a local .env file if present, so project-level settings can live there — just keep it out of version control.

Default storage locations

Scope	Path
`project`	`.knowit/knowledge.jsonl` inside the current repo
`global`	`~/.knowit/knowit.db`
`custom`	Value of `KNOWIT_DB_PATH`

Project installs deliberately do not set KNOWIT_DB_PATH: they rely on the MCP client's working directory and the project-local JSONL store, so the same config works for every teammate. Source configuration lives alongside the knowledge file in .knowit/sources.json.