Environment Variables

Veritas environment variables are intended for automation and emergency escape hatches. Do not leave validation bypasses enabled in CI without an explicit issue and removal plan.

Validation Escape Hatches

VERITAS_SKIP_SURFACE_VALIDATION=1

Skips Surface TrustBundle validation when Veritas emits trust.bundle.

This is intended as a short-lived escape hatch while repairing a broken example or projection. Veritas prints a warning on every invocation when this variable is set.

VERITAS_SKIP_STANDARDS_FEEDBACK_VALIDATION=1

Skips standards-feedback-draft schema validation for session log observation.

This is intended as a short-lived escape hatch while repairing an standards feedback observer or schema mismatch. Veritas prints a warning on every invocation when this variable is set.

Strictness Opt-Ins

VERITAS_STRICT_CONFIG=1

Turns a Repo Map or Repo Standards file that fails validation against its published schema into a hard load failure instead of the default warning.

Veritas validates both artifacts on every load. It warns rather than throws by default because those loaders sit on the Claude Code PreToolUse gate’s path, where a throw would block every edit in the repo until the config was repaired — and the natural response to that is VERITAS_HOOK_SKIP=1, i.e. a schema nit would train operators to disable the enforcement gate.

Set this once your config validates cleanly, to keep it that way. veritas readiness --check config is the equivalent check as a discrete, exit-coded command. A future major version makes strict the default.

Hook Requirement

VERITAS_SESSION_LOG_PATH

Provides the Veritas-owned session log path used by generated runtime hooks before they call veritas feedback observe --session-log.

Runtime-specific variables such as CODEX_TRANSCRIPT_PATH and CLAUDE_TRANSCRIPT_PATH may be read by generated hooks because those names are owned by the host runtime. Hooks normalize them into VERITAS_SESSION_LOG_PATH before invoking Veritas.

VERITAS_HOOK_SKIP=1

Tells generated Veritas hooks to exit without running. Use for local emergency bypasses, not as a normal CI configuration.

The generated git and runtime hooks honour this in their shell body and leave no record. The Claude Code PreToolUse gate is different: it is the only Veritas mechanism that can block an edit, so it resolves the skip inside Veritas and appends a hook-skip record to .kontourai/veritas/standards-feedback/exceptions.jsonl before approving. That puts it on the same auditable footing as a VERITAS_EXCEPTION_RULE bypass.

VERITAS_HOOK_SKIP_REASON

Optional free-text reason recorded on the hook-skip record written by the Claude Code PreToolUse gate. Ignored by the other generated hooks.

VERITAS_ACTOR

Provides the governance actor for veritas boundaries check when --actor is not supplied.