Configuration

Where settings live

Alden merges three layers, later ones winning:

Built-in defaults.
Your user config: ~/.alden/config.toml (alden config path prints it).
The repo's config: .alden.toml at the root of the repo you run Alden from.

alden config set writes to your user config. Edit .alden.toml by hand to share settings with a team, for example sensitive paths. alden config list prints the merged result.

# ~/.alden/config.toml
[model]
name = "sonnet"
effort = "medium"

[budget]
perReviewUsd = 0.5
dailyUsd = 10

[queue]
fastTrackMaxLines = 50

model

Key	Default	What it does
`model.provider`	`anthropic`	`anthropic`, `bedrock`, `vertex`, `foundry` or `openai-compatible`.
`model.name`	`sonnet`	An alias (`sonnet`, `opus`, `haiku`, `fable`), a full model ID, or a local model's name.
`model.effort`	unset	`low`, `medium`, `high`, `xhigh` or `max`. Unset uses the model's own default.
`model.baseUrl`	`http://localhost:11434/v1`	`openai-compatible` only: the endpoint.
`model.region`	unset	`bedrock` (AWS region) and `vertex` (GCP region, e.g. `global`).
`model.projectId`	unset	`vertex` only: the GCP project ID.
`model.resource`	unset	`foundry` only: the Azure AI Foundry resource name.

See Models, providers and budgets.

budget

Key	Default	What it does
`budget.perReviewUsd`	`0.5`	The most one review may cost, in US dollars.
`budget.dailyUsd`	`10`	The most all reviews may cost in your local day.

queue

Key	Default	What it does
`queue.includeDrafts`	`false`	Include draft PRs in `alden queue`.
`queue.fastTrackMaxLines`	`50`	The largest PR, in changed lines, that can be fast-tracked.
`queue.sensitivePaths`	see below	Glob patterns that raise a PR's risk and trigger the sensitive-paths check. Setting it replaces the defaults.

Default sensitive paths:

**/migrations/**      **/auth/**         **/payments/**      **/infra/**
.github/workflows/**  **/package-lock.json  **/pnpm-lock.yaml  **/yarn.lock
**/composer.lock      **/go.sum          **/poetry.lock

Environment variables

Variable	What it does
`ALDEN_GITHUB_TOKEN`	A GitHub token to use instead of the stored one.
`ALDEN_HOME`	Where Alden keeps its files. Default `~/.alden`.
`ALDEN_OPENAI_API_KEY`	The key for an `openai-compatible` endpoint (falls back to `OPENAI_API_KEY`).
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Your Anthropic API key, for the `anthropic` provider.

Files Alden keeps

Everything is under ~/.alden (or ALDEN_HOME):

Path	What it holds
`config.toml`	Your user settings.
`cache/`	GitHub responses, cached briefly, and your last queue (for `alden open` and `alden review <#>`).
`index/`	The code graph's per-file cache. Around 100 MB for a repo the size of Kubernetes.
`worktrees/`	Checkouts of PRs for the code graph, one per repo.
`alden.db`	The local database: feedback, the PRs you open, your notes, model spending, first use per repo. See Learning and memory.
`legacy/`	Files from before the database, kept after their one-time import. Safe to delete.

Deleting any of these is safe, but deleting alden.db also deletes your feedback, notes and what Alden learned, and resets today's daily cap. Alden rebuilds everything else as needed.