Configuration Reference

minizen reads its configuration from a TOML file (default ~/.config/minizen/config.toml) and secrets from environment variables.

Config file

[ai]
model = "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"
top_n = 5
interests = ["Rust", "AI safety", "climate tech"]  # optional
avoid = ["sports", "celebrity news"]                # optional

[miniflux]
url = "https://reader.miniflux.app"

[email]
smtp_host = "smtp.gmail.com"
smtp_port = 587
from_addr = "you@example.com"
to_addr = "you@example.com"

`[ai]` section

Key	Type	Default	Description
`model`	string	`"anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"`	pydantic-ai model identifier
`top_n`	integer	`5`	Number of articles selected for full AI summaries; remaining recent articles appear as a "More to read" link list
`max_words_per_article`	integer	`500`	Maximum words of article content sent to the LLM per article. Increase for longer summaries, decrease to reduce token usage.
`interests`	list of strings	`[]`	Topics for the AI to prioritise when selecting articles (e.g. `["Rust", "AI safety"]`). Omit or leave empty for no preference.
`avoid`	list of strings	`[]`	Topics for the AI to skip when selecting articles (e.g. `["sports", "crypto"]`). Omit or leave empty for no preference.
`preferred_categories`	list of strings	`[]`	Miniflux category names for the AI to prefer when selecting articles (e.g. `["Tech", "Science"]`). Listed in order of preference. Omit or leave empty for no preference.

Interest profile

Use interests and avoid to guide the AI's article selection without writing any prompts yourself. Both fields are optional — existing configs without them work unchanged.

[ai]
model = "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"
top_n = 5
interests = ["Rust", "AI safety", "climate tech"]
avoid = ["sports", "celebrity news", "crypto"]

The AI will favour articles matching your interests and skip those matching avoid when choosing the top N. Both lists accept any freeform topic strings — the more specific, the better.

Category preferences

Use preferred_categories to steer the AI toward articles from specific Miniflux categories. Categories are matched by their exact name in Miniflux (case-sensitive).

[ai]
model = "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"
top_n = 5
preferred_categories = ["Tech", "Science"]

The AI will favour articles from the listed categories when choosing the top N, treating earlier entries as higher priority. This works alongside interests and avoid — all three fields influence the same selection step. Unknown category names are silently ignored.

During setup the wizard prompts for both fields interactively:

Topics to prioritise (comma-separated, Enter to skip): Rust, AI safety, climate tech
Topics to avoid (comma-separated, Enter to skip): sports, crypto

Non-interactive setup accepts --interests and --avoid flags:

minizen setup --no-interactive \
  --interests "Rust,AI safety,climate tech" \
  --avoid "sports,crypto" \
  --from-addr you@example.com \
  --to-addr you@example.com

Supported models

minizen uses pydantic-ai for LLM integration. Any provider it supports works:

Provider	Example `model` value	Required env var
Anthropic	`anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5`	`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`
OpenAI	`openai:gpt-4o-mini`	`OPENAI_API_KEY`

`[miniflux]` section

Key	Type	Default	Description
`url`	string	`"https://reader.miniflux.app"`	Base URL of your Miniflux instance (no `/v1/` suffix)

`[email]` section

Key	Type	Default	Description
`smtp_host`	string	—	SMTP server hostname
`smtp_port`	integer	—	SMTP port (typically `587` for STARTTLS)
`from_addr`	string	—	Sender email address
`to_addr`	string	—	Recipient email address

Environment variables

Secrets are never stored in the config file. Set them in your shell or in ~/.config/minizen/.env (created by minizen setup when run interactively).

Variable	Purpose
`MINIFLUX_API_KEY`	Miniflux API key for authentication
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Anthropic API key (if using an Anthropic model)
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	OpenAI API key (if using an OpenAI model)
`MINIZEN_EMAIL_USERNAME`	SMTP login username
`MINIZEN_EMAIL_PASSWORD`	SMTP login password or app password

Custom config path

The default config path is ~/.config/minizen/config.toml. Pass a custom path with --config:

minizen run --config /path/to/config.toml

Manual setup (without `minizen setup`)

You can configure minizen entirely by hand — no wizard required.

1. Create the config file

Copy this template to ~/.config/minizen/config.toml and fill in your values:

[miniflux]
url = "https://reader.miniflux.app"  # or your self-hosted URL

[email]
smtp_host = "smtp.gmail.com"
smtp_port = 587
from_addr = "you@example.com"
to_addr = "you@example.com"

[ai]
model = "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"
top_n = 5
# max_words_per_article = 500                        # default: 500
# interests = ["Rust", "AI safety", "climate tech"]  # optional
# avoid = ["sports", "celebrity news", "crypto"]      # optional
# preferred_categories = ["Tech", "Science"]          # optional

Use minizen config set to update individual values later:

minizen config set ai.top_n 10
minizen config set ai.model "openai:gpt-4o-mini"

2. Set secrets via `.env` file

Create ~/.config/minizen/.env (same directory as config.toml):

MINIFLUX_API_KEY=your-miniflux-api-key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-anthropic-key   # or OPENAI_API_KEY
MINIZEN_EMAIL_USERNAME=your-smtp-username
MINIZEN_EMAIL_PASSWORD=your-smtp-app-password

Restrict permissions so only your user can read it:

chmod 600 ~/.config/minizen/.env

3. Set secrets via shell rc file

As an alternative to .env, export the variables in your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or equivalent):

export MINIFLUX_API_KEY="your-miniflux-api-key"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-anthropic-key"   # or OPENAI_API_KEY
export MINIZEN_EMAIL_USERNAME="your-smtp-username"
export MINIZEN_EMAIL_PASSWORD="your-smtp-app-password"

Reload your shell after editing: source ~/.zshrc (or source ~/.bashrc).

4. Verify the setup

minizen config validate

A clean output confirms minizen can read all required values.