priority: high

Configuration Loading & Precedence

CLI Mode Precedence (highest → lowest)

1. Individual CLI flags (

   --ocr

   ,

   --output-format

   ,

   --chunk

   )
2. Inline JSON config (

   --config-json

   or

   --config-json-base64

   )
3. Config file (

   --config path.toml

   )
4. Auto-discovered config (

   kreuzberg.{toml,yaml,json}

   in cwd/parents)
5. Default values

Server/MCP Mode Precedence

1. CLI arguments (

   --host

   ,

   --port

   )
2. Environment variables (

   KREUZBERG_HOST

   ,

   KREUZBERG_PORT

   )
3. Config file

   [server]

   section
4. Defaults (

   127.0.0.1:8000

   )

Config File Discovery

Searches current directory and parents for

kreuzberg.toml

,

kreuzberg.yaml

, or

kreuzberg.json

. Stops at first match.

Inline JSON Config

Field-level merge (not whole-object replacement):

fn merge_json_into_config(base: &ExtractionConfig, json: Value) -> Result<ExtractionConfig> {
    let mut config_json = serde_json::to_value(base)?;
    // Merge fields from json into config_json
    serde_json::from_value(merged)?
}

Use

--config-json-base64

for shell escaping.

Config File Formats

TOML (

kreuzberg.toml

):

use_cache = true
[ocr]
backend = "tesseract"
languages = ["eng", "deu"]
[security_limits]
max_archive_size = 524288000

YAML and JSON follow equivalent structure.

CLI Flag Overrides

In

commands.rs

:

apply_extraction_overrides()

applies individual flags on top of merged config.

Critical Rules

1. CLI flags always win over config file
2. JSON merge is field-level, not whole-object
3. Auto-discovery stops at first config file found

4. --config-json-base64

   for shell-safe JSON passing
5. Server config uses

   [server]

   section + extraction config