Configuration Guide

Horizon is configured through two files: a .env file for API keys and a data/config.json file for sources, AI provider, and filtering options.

API Requirements

• Required: one AI provider key referenced by ai.api_key_env in config.json. This key is used for scoring, filtering, summarization, and enrichment.
• Optional: GITHUB_TOKEN if you enable GitHub sources and want higher GitHub API rate limits.
• Not required in the current implementation: Reddit API credentials, Telegram bot tokens, or a separate web-search API key.

AI Providers

Configure which AI model scores and summarizes your content.

Anthropic Claude:

{
  "ai": {
    "provider": "anthropic",
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4.5-20250929",
    "api_key_env": "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"
  }
}

OpenAI:

{
  "ai": {
    "provider": "openai",
    "model": "gpt-4",
    "api_key_env": "OPENAI_API_KEY"
  }
}

MiniMax:

{
  "ai": {
    "provider": "minimax",
    "model": "MiniMax-M2.7",
    "api_key_env": "MINIMAX_API_KEY"
  }
}

Available models: MiniMax-M2.7, MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed, MiniMax-M2.5, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed

Aliyun DashScope (OpenAI-compatible):

{
  "ai": {
    "provider": "ali",
    "model": "qwen-plus",
    "api_key_env": "DASHSCOPE_API_KEY"
  }
}

Use the DashScope compatible-mode endpoint. Set DASHSCOPE_API_KEY in your .env. Optional: set base_url to override the default https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1.

Custom Base URL (for proxies):

{
  "ai": {
    "provider": "anthropic",
    "base_url": "https://your-proxy.com/v1",
    ...
  }
}

Information Sources

All sources are configured under the top-level sources key in config.json.

GitHub

{
  "sources": {
    "github": [
      {
        "type": "repo_releases",
        "owner": "globaldothealth",
        "repo": "outbreak-info",
        "enabled": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Hacker News

{
  "sources": {
    "hackernews": {
      "enabled": true,
      "fetch_top_stories": 30,
      "min_score": 100
    }
  }
}

RSS Feeds

{
  "sources": {
    "rss": [
      {
        "name": "Financial Times World",
        "url": "https://www.ft.com/world?format=rss",
        "enabled": true,
        "category": "global-economy"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Reddit

{
  "sources": {
    "reddit": {
      "enabled": true,
      "fetch_comments": 5,
      "subreddits": [
        {
          "subreddit": "geopolitics",
          "sort": "hot",
          "fetch_limit": 25,
          "min_score": 10
        }
      ],
      "users": []
    }
  }
}

Filtering

Content is scored 0-10:

• 9-10: Critical - Major geopolitical developments with immediate strategic significance
• 7-8: High Value - Important diplomatic, military, sanctions, or policy developments
• 5-6: Interesting - Useful context, follow-up reporting, or regional analysis
• 3-4: Low Priority - Generic or repetitive coverage without major implications
• 0-2: Noise - Weakly sourced, off-topic, or trivial content

{
  "filtering": {
    "ai_score_threshold": 8.0,
    "time_window_hours": 24
  }
}

• ai_score_threshold: Only include content scoring >= this value
• time_window_hours: Fetch content from last N hours

Environment Variable Substitution

RSS feed URLs support ${VAR_NAME} syntax for secrets. The variable is expanded at runtime from environment variables (or .env file):

{
  "name": "Private research feed",
  "url": "https://example.com/feed.xml?token=${PRIVATE_FEED_TOKEN}",
  "enabled": true
}

This way config.json can be committed to a public repo without leaking tokens.