Configuration Overview

N.E.K.O. has three separate configuration surfaces. They do not share one universal precedence chain.

Surface	Recommended editor	Runtime source
User settings, characters, API keys	Web UI	JSON under the selected N.E.K.O. data root
Provider definitions and model-role defaults	Maintainer-edited repository data	config/api_providers.json plus code fallbacks
Ports and selected runtime switches	Environment or desktop port settings	config/network.py, config/memory_settings.py, and port_config.json

For a normal installation, start N.E.K.O. and use the Web UI. Do not edit bundled files merely to change a personal API key.

References

• Config files: writable files and storage roots
• API providers: provider-schema contract
• Model configuration: role-based model resolution
• Environment variables: variables actually read by current code
• Config priority: precedence by configuration surface

Secrets

Keep API keys out of Git, screenshots, issue reports, and logs. The Web UI writes them to local user configuration.