Environment Variables All Tiers

All environment variables recognized by PairCoder.

Core Variables

Essential variables for PairCoder operation:

Variable Description Required
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY Your Anthropic API key for Claude. Required for Claude Code to function. Yes*
PAIRCODER_EDITOR Preferred editor for opening files. Overrides system default. No
PAIRCODER_HOME Override the default config directory (~/.paircoder). No
Note

*ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is required by Claude Code, not PairCoder directly. PairCoder will warn if it's not set when running commands that need Claude.

Trello Integration

Variable Description Required
TRELLO_API_KEY Your Trello API key from trello.com/power-ups/admin For Trello
TRELLO_TOKEN Your Trello authorization token For Trello
TRELLO_BOARD_ID Default board ID for task operations No

Getting Trello Credentials

bash 
# 1. Get your API key from:
# https://trello.com/power-ups/admin

# 2. Generate a token (replace YOUR_API_KEY):
# https://trello.com/1/authorize?expiration=never&scope=read,write&response_type=token&name=PairCoder&key=YOUR_API_KEY

# 3. Set environment variables
export TRELLO_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export TRELLO_TOKEN="your-token"

GitHub Integration

Variable Description Required
GITHUB_TOKEN Personal access token for GitHub API operations For GitHub
GH_TOKEN Alternative to GITHUB_TOKEN (GitHub CLI standard) No

Creating a GitHub Token

  1. Go to GitHub Settings → Tokens
  2. Click "Generate new token (classic)"
  3. Select scopes: repo, read:org
  4. Copy the token and set it as an environment variable

Editor Configuration

Variable Description Example Values
PAIRCODER_EDITOR Primary editor preference code, cursor, vim
EDITOR System default editor (fallback) vim, nano, code --wait
VISUAL Visual editor (fallback if EDITOR not set) code, subl
bash 
# Set VS Code as default editor
export PAIRCODER_EDITOR="code"

# Or Cursor
export PAIRCODER_EDITOR="cursor"

# Or vim
export PAIRCODER_EDITOR="vim"

Debug and Development

Variable Description Values
PAIRCODER_DEBUG Enable debug logging 1, true
PAIRCODER_LOG_LEVEL Set logging verbosity DEBUG, INFO, WARNING
NO_COLOR Disable colored output (standard) 1

Setting Variables Permanently

macOS / Linux (bash)

bash 
# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
export TRELLO_API_KEY="your-key"
export TRELLO_TOKEN="your-token"
export PAIRCODER_EDITOR="code"

# Reload
source ~/.bashrc

macOS / Linux (zsh)

bash 
# Add to ~/.zshrc
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
export TRELLO_API_KEY="your-key"
export TRELLO_TOKEN="your-token"
export PAIRCODER_EDITOR="code"

# Reload
source ~/.zshrc

Windows (PowerShell)

powershell 
# Temporary (current session)
$env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = "sk-ant-..."

# Permanent (user level)
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("ANTHROPIC_API_KEY", "sk-ant-...", "User")

Checking Current Values

bash 
# Check if a variable is set
echo $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

# Check PairCoder's view of configuration
bpsai-pair config show

# Check all environment variables
env | grep -E "PAIRCODER|TRELLO|GITHUB|ANTHROPIC"

Security Best Practices

Keep Secrets Safe
  • Never commit API keys or tokens to version control
  • Use environment variables or secret management tools
  • Add .env to your .gitignore
  • Rotate tokens periodically