Environment and files

Environment variables

Variable	Description
AIREG_HOME	aireg's own folder. Defaults to ~/.aireg.
AIREG_VERSION	Read by the installer: the release to install, such as 0.1.0. Defaults to the latest.
AIREG_USER_SCOPE	Your user scope, where -g installs. Defaults to ~/.registry.
AIREG_LOG_LEVEL	The same as --log-level. The option wins when both are set.
AIREG_GIT_TIMEOUT_MS	How long a git operation may take, in whole milliseconds, such as 60000. Defaults to 300000 (five minutes). Any other value is refused.
AIREG_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK	Any value stops aireg checking for and installing newer versions of itself and of its installed adapters.
AIREG_RELEASE_CHANNEL	The release channel aireg updates from. Defaults to stable, the only channel published.
AIREG_TOKEN_<NAME>	A token for the registry named <NAME> in capitals, with other characters as _, such as AIREG_TOKEN_ACME_PROD. How CI signs in. Sent only to the registry of that name the current scope declares: the project's manifest in a project, otherwise your user scope. See aireg auth.
AIREG_NO_MODIFY_PATH	Any value stops the installer adding aireg to your shell's PATH.
AIREG_NO_DEFAULT_REGISTRIES	Any value stops the installer offering the aireg skills.
NO_COLOR	Any non-empty value turns color off.
FORCE_COLOR, CLICOLOR_FORCE	Any value other than empty or 0 turns color on, even when output isn't a terminal.
CLICOLOR	0 turns color off.
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR	Where Claude Code keeps its user folder, if not ~/.claude.
CODEX_HOME	Where Codex keeps its user folder, if not ~/.codex.
COPILOT_HOME	Where GitHub Copilot keeps its user folder, if not ~/.copilot.
GEMINI_CLI_HOME	The folder that holds Gemini CLI's .gemini user folder, if not your home folder.
AI_AGENT, CLAUDECODE, CODEX_SANDBOX, CODEX_CI, CODEX_THREAD_ID, CURSOR_AGENT, COPILOT_CLI, GEMINI_CLI, ANTIGRAVITY_AGENT, AUGMENT_AGENT, OPENCODE, REPL_ID	Set by a coding agent that runs aireg, which then asks no questions. See When aireg asks questions.
CI	Any value means a CI service runs aireg. aireg then asks no questions, skips its update check, and the installer offers no skills.
TERM	dumb turns color and animation off.
HOME, USERPROFILE	Your home folder, in that order, else the one your OS reports. ~ in a path you type means this folder.
XDG_CONFIG_HOME	Where the fish startup file, the Linux daemon service and OpenCode's opencode/ user folder go, if not ~/.config.
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR	Where the daemon's socket goes, if set to an absolute path. Otherwise the system's temporary folder. A folder there that another user made first is passed over, ending at run/ in aireg's folder.
SHELL, ZDOTDIR	Which shell startup files the installer adds aireg to, and where zsh keeps them.
GITHUB_ACTIONS	Set to true by GitHub Actions. The installer then puts aireg on PATH through GITHUB_PATH, and aireg registry validate prints problems as annotations.
GITHUB_PATH, GITHUB_WORKSPACE	Set by GitHub Actions: the file later steps read PATH from, and the folder annotations are relative to.
GITHUB_BASE_REF	Set by GitHub Actions on a pull request. aireg registry validate compares against it when --base isn't given.

Project files

A project keeps what it installs in .registry/, next to your code:

Path	Description
.registry/manifest.yml	What the project installs: its harnesses, the registries it installs from, and the artifacts it takes from each. Commit it.
.registry/manifest.lock.yml	The exact version and digest of everything installed. Commit it.
.registry/artifacts/	The installed copies. The harness folders link to them. Committed by default, so a fresh clone works without running aireg; .registry/.gitignore shows how to leave them out.
.registry/backups/	Your own files that stood where aireg installs or removes a link, moved aside rather than deleted, in one folder per command named by its time, such as 20261009T062247Z/claude/skills/lint. A second command in the same second uses 20261009T062247Z-2. Each command names what it moves. Not committed.
.registry/leases/	The write lock a command holds while it changes the project, so two commands never write at once. See aireg unlock. It keeps itself out of git.
.registry/.gitignore	Written by aireg. It keeps aireg's temporary files and backups/ out of git.

Your user scope, ~/.registry/, holds the same files for what you install with -g, except its write lock, which is in ~/.aireg/leases/.

aireg's own files

aireg keeps its settings, caches and logs in ~/.aireg/ (or AIREG_HOME). Nothing you install lives here.

Path	Description
config.yml	aireg's settings and background jobs. Read and write settings with aireg config.
credentials.json	The tokens of the registries you signed in to with aireg auth login, each with the address it was issued for. Only you can read it.
cache/	A copy of each registry aireg has read. Safe to delete.
logs/	Diagnostic logs. Read them with aireg logs.
state/	The daemon's run history, a cache. See aireg daemon.
leases/	Which process is writing to which scope or registry right now. See aireg unlock.
journals/	What an install in progress has done, so an interrupted one can be finished.
bin/aireg	The aireg on your PATH.
cli/	The installed versions of aireg.

Network and privacy

aireg collects no usage analytics. It makes two kinds of request:

• To your registries. aireg reads each registry you add from where it is: a folder, or a git repository it fetches with your own git configuration and credentials.
• To its release server. An installed aireg asks https://aireg.sh for its newest release at most every 15 minutes, from a background process after a command and from the daemon, and installs a newer release it finds. It does the same for each adapter installed with aireg adapter install. When the release server says this version is below the minimum it supports, the next command installs the newer release before it runs. These requests carry no identifiers beyond a User-Agent: aireg/<version> header.

Set AIREG_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to stop the requests to the release server, then update with aireg self update when you choose. aireg also skips them when CI is set. A build from source doesn't check or update itself.

See also

CLI reference