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aias install

Capture your current shell environment into ~/.config/aia/schedule/env.sh so scheduled jobs can find aia, authenticate with LLM APIs, and reach any MCP servers your prompts depend on.

aias install [PATTERN...]

Run this once after installing aias, and again any time your environment changes.

What It Does

  1. Reads a set of environment variables from the current shell process (see Default Variables below)
  2. Writes them as export KEY="value" lines into ~/.config/aia/schedule/env.sh, wrapped in # BEGIN aias-env / # END aias-env markers
  3. Creates ~/.config/aia/schedule/ if it does not exist
  4. Copies ~/.config/aia/aia.yml to ~/.config/aia/schedule/aia.yml if that file does not yet exist (first run only)
  5. Sets file permissions on env.sh to 0600 (owner read/write only)

The generated env.sh is sourced at the start of every cron entry aias installs:

source ~/.config/aia/schedule/env.sh && aia --config ... prompt_id > log 2>&1

Default Variables

The following groups are captured automatically on every aias install, with no pattern argument required.

PATH

export PATH="/Users/you/.rbenv/shims:/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"

Why it is needed: Cron's default PATH is /usr/bin:/bin — nothing else. The aia binary lives in a gem bin directory under a Ruby version manager shim path. MCP server binaries (Node packages, Homebrew-installed tools) live in /opt/homebrew/bin or similar locations. Without the full PATH, every scheduled job would fail immediately with command not found.

PATH is captured from your live shell at install time, when rbenv, asdf, or your version manager is already activated. This is why aias install must be run from an interactive terminal, not from a cron job itself.

*_API_KEY (all variables ending in _API_KEY)

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."
export GEMINI_API_KEY="..."
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="..."

Why they are needed: Cron does not inherit your interactive shell's exports. Any variable you set in .bashrc, .zshrc, or in a terminal session is not available to cron unless it is explicitly written to a file that cron sources. Without the API key for the LLM provider your prompt uses, AIA cannot authenticate and every scheduled prompt run will return an authentication error.

The pattern *_API_KEY is broad by design — it captures keys for all LLM providers at once (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Together, OpenRouter, and any others you have set), so you do not need to list them individually.

AIA_* (all variables starting with AIA_)

export AIA_PROMPTS__DIR="/Users/you/.prompts"
export AIA_MODEL="claude-haiku-4-5"
export AIA_FLAGS__VERBOSE="false"

Why they are needed: AIA's runtime behaviour is controlled through AIA_* environment variables. The most important is AIA_PROMPTS__DIR, which tells AIA where to find prompt files. Without it, AIA cannot resolve a prompt ID like daily_digest to an actual file, and the job fails with a "file not found" error.

Other AIA_* variables set defaults that you may have tuned in your interactive shell — model selection, output format flags, backend adapter settings. Capturing the entire AIA_* group ensures the scheduled environment matches your interactive environment as closely as possible.

LANG and LC_ALL

export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

Why they are needed: When neither LANG nor LC_ALL is set, Ruby defaults to US-ASCII encoding. AIA prompt files, LLM responses, and log output routinely contain UTF-8 characters (curly quotes, em dashes, emoji, non-English text). Without a UTF-8 locale, Ruby raises Encoding::UndefinedConversionError and the job fails mid-run with a cryptic encoding error. Setting these variables ensures Ruby uses UTF-8 for all string operations.

Capturing Additional Variables with Patterns

Pass one or more glob patterns as arguments to capture variables beyond the defaults:

aias install 'PATTERN'
aias install 'PATTERN_1' 'PATTERN_2'
aias install 'PATTERN_1 PATTERN_2'   # space-separated in a single argument

Patterns are matched case-insensitively. The default groups (PATH, *_API_KEY, AIA_*, LANG, LC_ALL) are always included — patterns only add to them.

MCP Server Variables

If your scheduled prompts use MCP servers, those servers often need their own credentials or configuration variables. Cron will not have these unless you explicitly capture them.

GitHub MCP server

The GitHub MCP server (github-mcp-server) requires a personal access token to authenticate with the GitHub API:

aias install 'GITHUB_*'

This captures variables like GITHUB_TOKEN, GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN, and GITHUB_API_KEY — whichever your GitHub MCP server configuration expects. Without the token, any scheduled prompt that calls GitHub tools (reading issues, listing repositories, searching code) will receive an authentication error from the GitHub API.

Homebrew MCP server

The Homebrew MCP server (brew mcp-server) may read Homebrew-specific configuration variables:

aias install 'HOMEBREW_*'

This captures HOMEBREW_PREFIX, HOMEBREW_CELLAR, HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY, and any HOMEBREW_* variables you have set. Without them, the brew MCP server may fail to locate its own installation or behave differently than it does in your interactive shell.

Combining patterns

Install all at once in a single command:

aias install 'GITHUB_*' 'HOMEBREW_*'

Or add them to an existing env.sh incrementally — each aias install rewrites only the managed block, so running it multiple times with different patterns is safe. The last run wins for any variable that appears in more than one pattern.

Other MCP servers

The same principle applies to any MCP server that reads credentials or configuration from the environment. Check the documentation for each MCP server you use to identify its required environment variables, then add the appropriate pattern to your aias install command.

MCP server Variables to capture Pattern
github-mcp-server GITHUB_TOKEN, GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN 'GITHUB_*'
brew mcp-server HOMEBREW_PREFIX, HOMEBREW_CELLAR, etc. 'HOMEBREW_*'
OpenRouter OPEN_ROUTER_API_KEY captured by default (*_API_KEY)
crimson Check crimson's documentation 'CRIMSON_*'
Custom MCP server Depends on implementation 'YOUR_SERVER_*'

Example Output

aias: installed AGENTQL_API_KEY, AIA_FLAGS__VERBOSE, AIA_MODEL, AIA_PROMPTS__DIR,
  ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, GITHUB_TOKEN, HOMEBREW_PREFIX,
  LANG, LC_ALL, OPENAI_API_KEY, PATH into ~/.config/aia/schedule/env.sh

The Schedule Config

On the first run, if ~/.config/aia/aia.yml exists and ~/.config/aia/schedule/aia.yml does not, aias install copies your interactive AIA config to the schedule directory as a starting point:

aias: copied ~/.config/aia/aia.yml → ~/.config/aia/schedule/aia.yml

Review ~/.config/aia/schedule/aia.yml — these settings apply to all scheduled prompts.
Prompt frontmatter overrides any setting in that file.

Important: edit schedule/aia.yml after this copy. Your interactive config almost certainly has settings that are wrong for unattended cron jobs — MCP servers you do not want loaded for every scheduled run, verbose output flags, or editor-specific settings. The schedule config should be a minimal, conservative baseline. See Configuration Layering for guidance.

If schedule/aia.yml already exists, aias install leaves it untouched.

Updating env.sh

Re-run aias install (with any patterns you need) whenever:

  • You rotate or add an API key
  • You install a new MCP server binary
  • You change your Ruby version or version manager configuration
  • You add or change an AIA_* variable in your shell profile
  • You set up a new MCP server that needs its own credentials

The managed block in env.sh is replaced atomically on each run. Content you have written outside the markers is preserved.

Viewing the Captured Environment

cat ~/.config/aia/schedule/env.sh

Options

aias install accepts no named options — only the optional glob pattern arguments described above.

See Also