Configuration Atlas

Searchable table of every configuration key across orchid.yml and agents.yaml — filter by name, type, or description.

This page provides a searchable, filterable table of every configuration key across both config formats. Click any key to jump to its detailed reference page — Infrastructure for orchid.yml keys, Agents for agents.yaml keys.

Orchid supports two configuration formats with identical capabilities. Choose the one that fits your workflow — or mix both in hybrid mode.

YAML uses two files: orchid.yml for infrastructure and agents.yaml for agent behavior. Every key maps to an environment variable; real env vars always win. This is the original format, well-suited for programmatic generation and CI pipelines.

Markdown uses orchid.md for infrastructure and agents/*.md for per-agent configs. Each agent file has YAML frontmatter for structured fields and a Markdown body that becomes the system prompt directly — no YAML string escaping or multi-line block scalars. An on-demand SHA-256 watcher detects file changes and rebuilds the graph without restarting.

Both formats produce identical OrchidAgentsConfig output. The tables below cover all keys regardless of format.

Infrastructure Config

Runtime and infrastructure keys. In YAML these live in orchid.yml; in Markdown they are the frontmatter of orchid.md. Every key maps to a flat environment variable via ORCHID_CONFIG → YAML_TO_ENV. When the same variable is set in both the config file and the environment, the environment wins.

Agent Behavior Config

Agent behavior and orchestration configuration. In YAML these live in agents.yaml; in Markdown they are individual agents/<name>.md files with YAML frontmatter + Markdown body. Validated against OrchidAgentsConfig at startup — unknown keys raise an error, so typos surface immediately. Defaults cascade: values set under defaults: apply to every agent unless overridden per-agent.

Load Modes

YAML Mode

ORCHID_CONFIG=orchid.yml uvicorn orchid_api.main:app

MD Mode

ORCHID_CONFIG=orchid.md uvicorn orchid_api.main:app

Hybrid Mode

Keep orchid.yml for infrastructure while using agents/*.md for agents:

ORCHID_CONFIG=orchid.yml AGENTS_CONFIG_PATH=agents/ uvicorn orchid_api.main:app

Hot-Reload (MD Only)

The on-demand config watcher detects file changes via SHA-256 hashing — no background threads, no fs-notify libraries.

• The OrchidConfigWatcher tracks orchid.md + agents/*.md by their current hashes.
• Orchid.reload_config() calls watcher.reload_if_changed() and rebuilds the LangGraph when a change is detected.
• Graph rebuild is serialised via asyncio.Lock — existing requests complete with the old config.
• The API middleware (ConfigReloadMiddleware) polls the watcher at most every ORCHID_RELOAD_INTERVAL seconds (default 30, set to 0 to disable).

# Enable hot-reload with 10-second polling:
ORCHID_RELOAD_INTERVAL=10

MD File Format

orchid.md — Root Config

Infrastructure keys (llm, auth, rag, storage) map to environment variables. Agent behavior keys (version, defaults, tools, skills, supervisor, guardrails, events) are validated against the Pydantic schema. The body after the closing --- is free-form documentation.

agents/<name>.md — Per-Agent Config

Each agent file has YAML frontmatter for structured fields and a Markdown body for the system prompt. The filename stem becomes the agent name.

Equivalence

MD and YAML configs produce identical OrchidAgentsConfig output. Run the equivalence test:

cd orchid && .venv/bin/python examples/md-config/test_equivalence.py