Configuration
Runtime configuration lives in settings.xml, the same format as Composer Desktop. On Linux, you may need to reconfigure URI / file paths to match the local directory layout — the on-disk paths Desktop persisted on Windows won't be valid on a Linux host without translation.
Project-level settings (Autostart, Render Tuning, Sync Source, audio channel mode) are set on the project itself in Composer Desktop and travel with the .prj file — Runtime honours them on load. See Performance and project options in the User Guide for the full reference; Autostart and Render Tuning are especially relevant for Runtime deployments.
For per-property settings reference, see the settings.xml reference.
Environment variables
The Runtime reads the following environment variables natively — useful for containers and headless deployments, where the environment is the idiomatic configuration channel. Where a variable has a command-line equivalent, the CLI flag takes precedence over the environment variable, which in turn takes precedence over the on-disk default.
| Variable | Effect | Precedence |
|---|---|---|
COMPOSER_SETTINGS_FILE |
Path to the settings.xml to load (honoured by the early log-directory / Loki reads too). |
--settings-file > env > default settings.xml |
COMPOSER_RUNTIME_API_PORT |
Port for the Runtime Lifecycle API. | --runtime-api-port > env |
COMPOSER_HEALTH_PORT |
Port for the unauthenticated health/probe endpoint (/startup, /health, /ready). |
--health-port > env |
COMPOSER_SHUTDOWN_DEADLINE_SECONDS |
Max seconds for graceful shutdown before the process force-exits with code 75. |
--shutdown-deadline-seconds > env > 25 |
COMPOSER_MEDIADIRECTORY |
Overrides the media root from settings.xml. |
env > settings.xml |
COMPOSER_FFMPEG6p2 |
FFmpeg 6p2 install root — the directory containing the FFmpeg libraries (on Linux, the one holding libavformat.so.60*). |
env > registry (Windows); env > .vindralcomposerruntime file (Linux) |
VINDRAL_CEF_CACHE |
Windows Runtime only — CEF cache directory for the Web Page (Chromium) input. No effect in the Linux container, which uses the cross-platform Web Page variant. | env > default %LocalAppData%\VindralComposer\CefCache |
Docker note:
COMPOSER_SETTINGS_FILEis also used by the provideddocker-composefiles as the host mount source (${COMPOSER_SETTINGS_FILE}:/app/settings.xml). Inside the container the Runtime reads the mounted/app/settings.xml(the default location), so do not also setCOMPOSER_SETTINGS_FILEas a container environment variable pointing at a host path.