Configuration
The .haypile.yml per-folder config file and the data directory.
Haypile needs no configuration to work. When you want control, there are exactly two places to look: a per-folder YAML file and a handful of environment variables.
.haypile.yml
Lives in a source folder, written by hay init, editable by hand. The daemon watches it: saving a change re-syncs the index within seconds.
tag: acme-litigation
exclude:
- drafts/**
- "*.bak"
- "**/archive/**"tag
Applied to everything indexed under this folder. Search with --tag to scope results. A tag passed explicitly to hay add --tag wins over the config.
exclude
Glob patterns matched against paths relative to the folder, gitignore flavored:
| Pattern | Matches |
|---|---|
drafts/** | everything under the drafts subtree |
*.bak | .bak files at any depth (bare names match everywhere) |
**/archive/** | anything under any directory named archive |
Adding a pattern removes already-indexed matching files from the index on the next sync. Removing a pattern brings them back. A malformed pattern or broken YAML fails the indexing pass loudly rather than silently indexing everything.
Hidden directories (.git and anything else starting with a dot) are always skipped; you do not need to exclude them.
The data directory
Everything Haypile stores lives in one place:
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
~/.haypile/haypile.db | The entire index: files, chunks, vectors, FTS. One SQLite file |
~/.haypile/daemon.json | Runtime file: the running daemon's address and pid |
On Windows the same directory is %USERPROFILE%\.haypile. Set HAYPILE_DIR to relocate it. Deleting the directory deletes the index and nothing else; your documents are never touched. Back it up by copying one file.
Replacing the embedding model
The bundled model is the default and the right choice for almost everyone. If you run an embedding server (Ollama and others expose one), HAYPILE_EMBED_ENDPOINT and HAYPILE_EMBED_MODEL switch Haypile to it, trading the zero-setup guarantee for a larger model.
Vectors from different models are not comparable, so an index sticks with the model that embedded it: pointing an existing index at a different model is an error, not silent degradation. To switch, re-index (hay remove then hay add), or keep a separate index for the experiment with HAYPILE_DIR.
Environment variables
See the CLI reference for the full table. The two most useful:
HAYPILE_DIR: keep separate indexes (for tests, for work vs personal) by pointing this at different directories.HAYPILE_NO_DAEMON=1: force direct index access with no background process, useful in scripts and CI.