Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add a new environment variable?

To add a new environment variable, add it to your .env file. If you don't have a .env file, you can simply create it by copying the file .env.example.

cp -n .env.example .env

Then open the .env file and add your new environment variable.

.env

# Lexy settings
SECRET_KEY=super_secret_key
DEFAULT_STORAGE_SERVICE=s3
DEFAULT_STORAGE_BUCKET=your_s3_bucket_name

# Other secrets
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_secret_api_key
NEW_ENV_VAR=your_new_env_var_value

Warning

Updating the .env file will not automatically update the environment variables in your docker containers. You need to rebuild the containers for the new environment variable to take effect. See below.

You should add environment variables before building your docker containers. Or if you have already built your containers, you can run the following to rebuild the server and worker containers.

make rebuild-dev-containers

Verify that your new environment variable has been added to the server and worker containers.

docker exec lexy-server env | grep -i NEW_ENV_VAR
docker exec lexy-celeryworker env | grep -i NEW_ENV_VAR

A note about environment variables

You can also access the environment variables in your .env file using the lexy.core.config module. In that case, you don't need to rebuild your containers.

Ideally, the variables that are loaded through lexy.core.config should be those related to the application's configuration, whereas user-specific environment variables should be loaded through Python's os.environ module.

Why is Lexy written in Python? Isn't Python slow?

Python is (1) easy to read and write, (2) extremely popular in the data and machine learning communities, and (3) great for orchestration of complex systems. It's not yet clear to us what the biggest bottlenecks will be, but we are confident that we can optimize performance using C/C++ bindings. And if that doesn't work, we'll just RIIR.

I think the name Lexy is super cool.

Technically this isn't a question, but we agree with you! The name comes from "lexicon," defined as the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge.