Configuration

Complete reference for MoneyPrinter environment variables and configuration options.

Configuration

MoneyPrinter reads configuration from a .env file in the project root. Use .env.example as your starting template.

Environment File

Create your configuration file:

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env with your preferred text editor:

.env

# Required API Keys
TIKTOK_SESSION_ID=""
PEXELS_API_KEY=""

# Optional Configuration
IMAGEMAGICK_BINARY=""
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11434"
OLLAMA_MODEL="llama3.1:8b"
OLLAMA_TIMEOUT="180"
ASSEMBLY_AI_API_KEY=""

# Database (Docker)
POSTGRES_DB="moneyprinter"
POSTGRES_USER="moneyprinter"
POSTGRES_PASSWORD="moneyprinter"
DATABASE_URL=""

Required Variables

TIKTOK_SESSION_ID

Description: TikTok session cookie used for text-to-speech API calls.

How to obtain:

1. Log into TikTok

   Open tiktok.com in your browser and log in.

2. Open Developer Tools

   Press F12 or right-click and select “Inspect Element”.

3. Navigate to Cookies

   Go to Application → Cookies → https://www.tiktok.com.

4. Copy sessionid

   Find the sessionid cookie and copy its value.

.env

TIKTOK_SESSION_ID="abc123def456..."

The session ID may expire periodically. If TTS fails with authentication errors, refresh this value.

PEXELS_API_KEY

Description: API key for fetching stock video clips from Pexels.

How to obtain:

1. Create Pexels account

   Sign up at pexels.com/api.

2. Generate API key

   Navigate to your API dashboard and generate a new key.

.env

PEXELS_API_KEY="your_pexels_api_key_here"

Pexels offers a generous free tier (200 requests/hour). No credit card required.

Optional Variables

IMAGEMAGICK_BINARY

Description: Absolute path to the ImageMagick executable.

Default: Auto-detect from PATH

The backend auto-detects ImageMagick on startup:

Backend/utils.py

def resolve_imagemagick_binary() -> Optional[str]:
    configured_binary = os.getenv("IMAGEMAGICK_BINARY", "").strip().strip('"')
    if configured_binary:
        expanded = Path(configured_binary).expanduser()
        if expanded.exists():
            return str(expanded.resolve())

    candidate_names = [
        "magick",
        "magick.exe",
        "convert",
        "convert.exe",
    ]

    for candidate in candidate_names:
        found = shutil.which(candidate)
        if found:
            return found

    return None

If auto-detection fails, set the path explicitly:

Linux/macOS

IMAGEMAGICK_BINARY="/usr/local/bin/magick"

Windows paths must use double backslashes (\\) or forward slashes (/).

OLLAMA_BASE_URL

Description: Base URL of the Ollama server for model listing and chat generation.

Default: http://localhost:11434

Used by the Ollama client:

Backend/gpt.py

OLLAMA_BASE_URL = os.getenv("OLLAMA_BASE_URL", "http://localhost:11434").rstrip("/")

def _ollama_client() -> Client:
    return Client(host=OLLAMA_BASE_URL, timeout=OLLAMA_TIMEOUT)

Examples:

.env

# Local Ollama
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11434"

# Docker backend connecting to host Ollama
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://host.docker.internal:11434"

# Remote Ollama server
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://192.168.1.100:11434"

OLLAMA_MODEL

Description: Fallback model name if the frontend doesn’t specify one.

Default: llama3.1:8b

Backend/gpt.py

OLLAMA_MODEL = os.getenv("OLLAMA_MODEL", "llama3.1:8b")

def generate_response(prompt: str, ai_model: str) -> str:
    model_name = (ai_model or "").strip() or OLLAMA_MODEL
    # ...

Pull the model before use:

ollama pull llama3.1:8b

Recommended models:

Model	Size	Speed	Quality	Use Case
llama3.1:8b	4.7GB	Fast	Good	General purpose
mistral:7b	4.1GB	Very Fast	Good	Quick iterations
llama3.1:70b	40GB	Slow	Excellent	Best quality (GPU required)
qwen2.5:7b	4.7GB	Fast	Good	Multilingual

OLLAMA_TIMEOUT

Description: Timeout in seconds for Ollama API requests.

Default: 180 (3 minutes)

Backend/gpt.py

OLLAMA_TIMEOUT = float(os.getenv("OLLAMA_TIMEOUT", "180"))

def _ollama_client() -> Client:
    return Client(host=OLLAMA_BASE_URL, timeout=OLLAMA_TIMEOUT)

Increase this value if you’re using large models that take longer to respond:

.env

# For slower models or resource-constrained systems
OLLAMA_TIMEOUT=300

Large models (70B+) may require longer timeouts, especially on CPU-only systems.

ASSEMBLY_AI_API_KEY

Description: API key for AssemblyAI subtitle generation. If empty, local subtitle generation is used.

Default: Empty (use local processing)

.env

ASSEMBLY_AI_API_KEY="your_assemblyai_key_here"

Local vs AssemblyAI subtitles:

Feature	Local	AssemblyAI
Cost	Free	Paid ($0.00025/sec)
Quality	Basic	High accuracy
Speed	Fast	Network latency
Privacy	Fully local	Cloud upload

For most use cases, local subtitle generation is sufficient. AssemblyAI provides better accuracy for complex audio.

Database Configuration

DATABASE_URL

Description: SQLAlchemy connection string for the job queue database.

Default: sqlite:///moneyprinter.db (local file)

The database is initialized on startup:

Backend/db.py

import os
from sqlalchemy import create_engine
from sqlalchemy.orm import declarative_base, sessionmaker

DATABASE_URL = os.getenv(
    "DATABASE_URL",
    "sqlite:///moneyprinter.db"
)

engine = create_engine(DATABASE_URL)
SessionLocal = sessionmaker(bind=engine)
Base = declarative_base()

Examples:

.env

# Local SQLite (default)
DATABASE_URL="sqlite:///moneyprinter.db"

# Docker Postgres
DATABASE_URL="postgresql+psycopg://moneyprinter:moneyprinter@postgres:5432/moneyprinter"

# External Postgres
DATABASE_URL="postgresql+psycopg://user:pass@host:5432/dbname"

POSTGRES_DB, POSTGRES_USER, POSTGRES_PASSWORD

Description: Docker Compose Postgres service configuration.

Defaults:

• POSTGRES_DB=moneyprinter
• POSTGRES_USER=moneyprinter
• POSTGRES_PASSWORD=moneyprinter

Used by docker-compose.yml:

docker-compose.yml

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_DB=${POSTGRES_DB:-moneyprinter}
      - POSTGRES_USER=${POSTGRES_USER:-moneyprinter}
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD:-moneyprinter}

Production: Change POSTGRES_PASSWORD to a strong, unique password.

Validation

The backend validates required variables on startup:

Backend/utils.py

def check_env_vars() -> None:
    required_vars = ["PEXELS_API_KEY", "TIKTOK_SESSION_ID"]
    missing_vars = []
    
    for var in required_vars:
        value = os.getenv(var)
        if value is None or len(value) == 0:
            missing_vars.append(var)

    if missing_vars:
        logger.error(
            f"Missing environment variables: {', '.join(missing_vars)}"
        )
        sys.exit(1)

    # Verify ImageMagick
    imagemagick_binary = resolve_imagemagick_binary()
    if not imagemagick_binary:
        logger.error("ImageMagick not found")
        sys.exit(1)

If variables are missing, the backend exits with an error:

ERROR: The following environment variables are missing: PEXELS_API_KEY, TIKTOK_SESSION_ID
Please consult 'docs/configuration.md' for setup instructions.

Next Steps

Quickstart

Generate your first video

Docker Setup

Deploy with Docker Compose

Ollama Models

Install and select Ollama models

Troubleshooting

Common configuration issues