Environment variables

A small set of environment variables control how the CLI authenticates and which Claude Code executable the runner uses. They are most useful in CI and on locked-down machines.

Variables

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Set this when you want to run with the --use-api-key flag. The runner reads the key from the environment and uses it for agent execution.

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
pipemason start "add a /healthz endpoint" --use-api-key

PIPEMASON_CLAUDE_PATH

Point the runner at a specific Claude Code executable. Useful when the binary lives outside your PATH or you maintain several installs.

export PIPEMASON_CLAUDE_PATH="/opt/claude/bin/claude"
pipemason start "..."

CURSOR_API_KEY

Required when you select the Cursor backend with --provider cursor (or provider: cursor in config). The runner reads it from the environment and uses it with Cursor's cursor-agent CLI; all inference and billing run through your Cursor account, not a BYO Anthropic key. Run pipemason doctor to verify it is set.

export CURSOR_API_KEY="..."
pipemason start "add a /healthz endpoint" --provider cursor

PIPEMASON_NO_UPDATE_CHECK

On every invocation the CLI checks (at most once a day) whether a newer pipemason version is available and, if so, offers to update. The check is fail-open and only prompts in an interactive terminal, so it never blocks CI or scheduled runs. Set this variable to disable it entirely; use --no-update-check to skip a single run. (PIPEMASON_FORCE_UPDATE_CHECK=1 bypasses the once-a-day throttle.)

export PIPEMASON_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1

Credentials

Account credentials are not configured through environment variables. After you pair a runner with pipemason login, the resulting token is written to ~/.pipemason/credentials.json. That file stays on your machine; the cloud only stores a hash of the token.