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Configuration

Prevail’s machine-local configuration lives in ~/.prevail/config.json. Most of it you’ll set through the cockpit and the first-run wizard, but it’s plain JSON you can edit directly.

`~/.prevail/config.json`

{
  "vaultPath": "/Users/you/life-vault",
  "chairModel": {
    "cli": "claude",
    "model": "claude-opus-4-7"
  },
  "modelPins": {
    "claude": "opus",
    "codex": "gpt-5.4",
    "antigravity": "Gemini 3.1 Pro (High)",
    "ollama": "llama3.1"
  },
  "domainFramework": {
    "wealth": "bluf",
    "tax": "scqa"
  },
  "domainLens": {
    "health": "first-principles"
  },
  "webAccess": {
    "default": false,
    "wealth": true,
    "research": true
  },
  "councilMaxCallsPerTurn": 16
}

Key	What it controls
`vaultPath`	Which folder is your vault
`chairModel`	The pinned chair CLI + model for council synthesis (`/council chair`)
`modelPins`	The default model for each CLI
`domainFramework`	Per-domain default framework
`domainLens`	Per-domain default lens
`webAccess`	Web-access default, with per-domain overrides
`councilMaxCallsPerTurn`	Hard cap on parallel calls per turn (default 16)

Per-domain keys are why wealth and tax can behave completely differently — the settings you change in the cockpit for one domain are written here under that domain’s name.

Other files in `~/.prevail/`

File	Holds	Notes
`telegram.json`	Bot token + chat-ID allowlist	`chmod 0600`
`mcp.json`	Auto-generated MCP bearer token	`chmod 0600`, never commit
`debug.log`	Diagnostics	`prevail doctor --debug` tails it
`sessions/`	SQLite chat history (FTS5)	Powers `/search`
`connectors/<id>/auth/`	Per-connector tokens & sessions	`chmod 0600`
`apps/community/`	Connector definitions
`daemon.pid`	PID file for the daemon	Prevents double-start

Vault-level state

Some configuration travels with the vault rather than the machine, because it’s about your data, not your credentials:

File	Holds
`<vault>/AGENTS-operating.md`	The operating manual prepended to agent calls — edit to change how agents treat your vault
`<vault>/.schedule.json`	Recurring commands
`<vault>/.briefings.json`	Scheduled domain briefings

Environment

Prevail reads no special environment variables of its own beyond the standard ones ($EDITOR for the e key, $PATH to find the CLIs). It deliberately scrubs sensitive variables out of the environment before spawning any CLI subprocess — see Security.