Purpose

Job 1083 promoted every previously-optional knob in .env.example to required, and renamed three of them. Operators must populate the full set before the container will boot.

Required Variables

Variable	Example value	Purpose
`MASTODON_BASE_URL`	`https://mastodon.social`	Mastodon instance to post against.
`MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN`	(from your Mastodon account)	OAuth access token.
`MASTODON_VISIBILITY`	`public`	Post visibility (`public` or `unlisted`).
`SITE_URL`	`https://blog.example.com`	Source blog URL.
`HASHTAGS`	`#throwback,#10backward`	Hashtags appended to every throwback post.
`THROWBACK_PREFIX`	`Heute vor 10 Jahren:`	Prefix prepended to every Mastodon status.
`MAX_RETRIES`	`5`	Maximum number of pipeline attempts.
`RUN_AT`	`09:00`	Daily fire time (`HH:MM`, 24-hour).
`TZ`	`Europe/Berlin`	IANA timezone for cron and application.
`BLOG_REPO_URL`	project default	Optional source repository URL.
`BLOG_DIR`	`blog`	Optional clone directory, relative to `DATA_DIR` unless absolute.

Where Each Name Is Enforced

entrypoint.sh — validates all nine required keys, validates RUN_AT, and installs the cron file as root. The cron-launched wrapper then drops privileges to bot before Python runs.
tenbackward.config.validate_config — validates the merged raw required keys plus URL, visibility, timezone, and retry syntax. Defaults are applied only after required-key validation.
docker-compose.yml — supplies development environment values and mounts ./data at /app/data.

Setup Steps

Copy the template:
```
cp .env.example .env
```
Replace placeholder values in .env (the example ships with MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN=replace-me and https://mastodon.example).
Verify the file parses by running the validator directly:
```
python -m tenbackward
```
A successful validation run emits one startup JSON log line and exits 0. Missing/invalid config exits 2.
Bring up the container:
```
docker compose up --build
```
The required-var check in entrypoint.sh runs first; if any variable is empty, the container exits before cron starts.

Renames vs. Job 1082

Old key	New key
`MASTODON_VISIBILITY`	`VISIBILITY`
`THROWBACK_PREFIX`	`THROWNBACK_PREFIX`
`RETRY_COUNT`	`MAX_RETRIES`

If you have an existing .env from the scaffold, rename these manually. The renamed variables are not backwards compatible — the container will refuse to start with both versions set.

Defaults

MAX_RETRIES defaults to 5; BLOG_REPO_URL and BLOG_DIR also have application defaults. Other application-facing required keys must be present in the raw merged dotenv/process environment. The Docker image supplies TZ=Europe/Berlin, and Compose supplies development fallbacks, but production deployments should set every required value explicitly.

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