What changed in v7

See also: How configuration works · Migrating a v6 install to v7 · Settings reference

v7 replaced the PHP engine with a TypeScript/Bun one, and configuration changed with it. This page is the reference for what moved, what was renamed, and what is simply gone — so that when a v6 setting seems to have vanished, you can find out what happened to it.

If you are upgrading an existing install, read Migrating a v6 install to v7 instead: it is the one manual for the whole migration, and its Phase C tells you how to run the config conversion. This page is the "why" behind it.

The short version

	v6	v7
Where config lives	four PHP files in `config/` (`config.php`, `config_db.php`, `config_areas.php`, `config_core.php`)	one file, `../private/.env`, outside the web root
How you write a setting	`define('DEDALO_TIMEZONE', 'Europe/Madrid');`	`DEDALO_TIMEZONE=Europe/Madrid`
Lists and maps	PHP array literals	JSON
Paths	you declared them (`DEDALO_CORE_PATH`, `DEDALO_MEDIA_URL`, …)	the engine derives them
Runtime state	`config_core.php`, written by the app	`../private/ts_state.json`
Editing config	edit a `.php` file inside the web root	edit `.env`, or use the install wizard

There is no config.php in v7, and no PHP at all. Nothing you put in a .php file is read.

The .env is append-only

Add and change lines; do not delete or reorder other people's. A setting you remove falls back to the engine's built-in default, which is rarely what you meant. Retired keys are left in place, not deleted — see below.

Why one file instead of four

The v6 config was PHP code, not data: config.php computed paths with dirname(), read $_SERVER, called setlocale(), and ended by including the application loader. That made it powerful and impossible to reason about — the value of a constant depended on how the process had been started, and a config file could (and did) run application code.

v7's .env is data. A key has one value, the engine derives everything that can be derived, and nothing in the config file executes.

How a value is resolved in v7

process environment   →   ../private/.env   →   the engine's built-in default

The real environment wins (so a systemd unit or a one-off DEDALO_DEV_MODE=true bun run dev can override a file), then ../private/.env, then the default compiled into the engine. There is no per-host file, no config.local.php, and no scope/catalog machinery — if you knew the v6/PHP-v7 config catalog, that concept is gone.

For the keys listed under "still works as a fallback" below, the engine also accepts the old PHP spelling, so a migrated .env keeps working unchanged.

Key changes

Renamed — and the old name no longer works

The old spelling is retired: the engine refuses to boot if it finds it, rather than silently ignoring it and falling back to a default.

v6 constant	v7 key
`DEDALO_PREFIX_TIPOS`	`ACTIVE_ONTOLOGY_TLDS`

DEDALO_PREFIX_TIPOS never described what it held. The value is the set of ontology top-level domains active in this installation (dd, rsc, oh, …) — which is the word the rest of Dédalo already used. See Defining active ontology TLDs for what each TLD means.

Why the boot refuses instead of ignoring it

An empty TLD list is not harmless: it shrinks the ontology-update panel's file list to nothing. Silently defaulting would have looked like it worked.

Renamed — but the v6 spelling still works

These have a shorter, engine-native name in v7. The v6 name is honored as a fallback, so a migrated .env needs no edit; the v7 name wins when both are set.

v6 constant	v7 key
`DEDALO_ENTITY`	`ENTITY`
`MAIN_FALLBACK_SECTION`	`MAIN_SECTION`
`DEDALO_DATABASE_CONN`	`DB_NAME`
`DEDALO_HOSTNAME_CONN`	`DB_HOST`
`DEDALO_DB_PORT_CONN`	`DB_PORT`
`DEDALO_USERNAME_CONN`	`DB_USER`
`DEDALO_PASSWORD_CONN`	`DB_PASSWORD`
`DEDALO_MEDIA_PATH`	`MEDIA_PATH`
`DEDALO_APPLICATION_LANG`	`APPLICATION_LANG`
`DEDALO_DATA_LANG`	`DATA_LANG`
`DEDALO_DATA_LANG_SYNC`	`DATA_LANG_SYNC`
`DEDALO_DATA_NOLAN`	`DATA_NOLAN`
`DEDALO_PROJECTS_DEFAULT_LANGS`	`PROJECTS_DEFAULT_LANGS`
`DEDALO_ENTITY_MENU_SKIP_TIPOS`	`MENU_SKIP_TIPOS`
`SLOW_QUERY_MS`	`DEDALO_SLOW_QUERY_MS`

Changed name and shape

v6 constant	v7 key	what changed
`MYSQL_DEDALO_HOSTNAME_CONN`	`DEDALO_DIFFUSION_DB_HOST`	in v7 the Bun engine — not PHP — owns the MariaDB (diffusion) connection, so it has its own key family
`MYSQL_DEDALO_DB_PORT_CONN`	`DEDALO_DIFFUSION_DB_PORT`	”
`MYSQL_DEDALO_SOCKET_CONN`	`DEDALO_DIFFUSION_DB_SOCKET`	”
`MYSQL_DEDALO_USERNAME_CONN`	`DEDALO_DIFFUSION_DB_USER`	”
`MYSQL_DEDALO_PASSWORD_CONN`	`DEDALO_DIFFUSION_DB_PASSWORD`	”
`MAGICK_PATH`	`DEDALO_MAGICK_PATH`	v6 held a directory (`/usr/bin/`); v7 holds the executable (`/usr/bin/magick`)
`DB_BIN_PATH`	`DEDALO_PG_BIN_PATH`	same idea: a bare directory, no trailing slash

MYSQL_DEDALO_DATABASE_CONN has no v7 equivalent: a diffusion publication now carries its own target database, so there is no single configured name.

Lists and maps are JSON now

# v6
define('DEDALO_IMAGE_EXTENSIONS_SUPPORTED', ['jpg','png','tif']);
define('DEDALO_APPLICATION_LANGS', ['lg-eng'=>'English','lg-spa'=>'Castellano']);

# v7
DEDALO_IMAGE_EXTENSIONS_SUPPORTED=["jpg","png","tif"]
DEDALO_APPLICATION_LANGS={"lg-eng":"English","lg-spa":"Castellano"}

Simple lists also accept a comma list (dd,rsc,oh), which is easier to read. Maps and lists-of-objects (ONTOLOGY_SERVERS, MENU_SKIP_TIPOS) must be JSON.

Settings that are gone

Nothing here needs replacing — each was removed because v7 does not work that way. The migration reports every one of these, with the reason, rather than dropping them silently.

The engine derives it now — paths and URLs

DEDALO_ROOT_PATH, DEDALO_ROOT_WEB, DEDALO_CORE_PATH, DEDALO_CORE_URL, DEDALO_CONFIG_PATH, DEDALO_SHARED_PATH, DEDALO_SHARED_URL, DEDALO_TOOLS_PATH, DEDALO_TOOLS_URL, DEDALO_LIB_PATH, DEDALO_LIB_URL, DEDALO_WIDGETS_PATH, DEDALO_WIDGETS_URL, DEDALO_EXTRAS_PATH, DEDALO_EXTRAS_URL, DEDALO_INSTALL_PATH, DEDALO_INSTALL_URL, DEDALO_API_URL, DEDALO_MEDIA_URL, DEDALO_IMAGE_FILE_URL, DEDALO_UPLOAD_TMP_DIR, DEDALO_UPLOAD_TMP_URL, DEDALO_BACKUP_PATH_DB, DEDALO_BACKUP_PATH_TEMP, DEDALO_BACKUP_PATH_ONTOLOGY, COLOR_PROFILES_PATH, ONTOLOGY_DATA_IO_URL, and the rest of the *_PATH / *_URL family.

The media type comes from the file extension now

DEDALO_IMAGE_MIME_TYPE, DEDALO_IMAGE_TYPE, DEDALO_AV_MIME_TYPE, DEDALO_AV_TYPE, DEDALO_PDF_MIME_TYPE, DEDALO_PDF_TYPE, DEDALO_SVG_MIME_TYPE, DEDALO_3D_MIME_TYPE, DEDALO_3D_THUMB_DEFAULT.

The subsystem does not exist in v7

PHP sessions and the cache manager (DEDALO_SESSION_HANDLER, DEDALO_SESSIONS_PATH, DEDALO_CACHE_MANAGER) — v7 has its own session store. The PHP logger and debug flags (LOGGER_LEVEL, SHOW_DEBUG, SHOW_DEVELOPER). The front-end CDN/library URLs (USE_CDN, JQUERY_*, BOOTSTRAP_*, D3_URL_JS, LEAFLET_JS_URL, …) — v7 serves its own client. PHP binaries and DB management (PHP_BIN_PATH, DEDALO_DB_TYPE, DEDALO_DB_MANAGEMENT). Plus ENCRYPTION_MODE, MAGICK_CONFIG, DEDALO_AV_FFMPEG_SETTINGS, DEDALO_PROFILE_DEFAULT, API_WEB_USER_CODE_MULTIPLE and the glTF converters.

Superseded by a native subsystem

IP_API — section Activity (dd542) still resolves a source country from the visitor IP, but v7 does it server-side and offline against the openly-licensed DB-IP Country Lite database (src/core/geoip) instead of pointing each browser at a third-party API. Configure it with the DEDALO_GEOIP_* keys (DEDALO_GEOIP_ENABLED, DEDALO_GEOIP_DIR, DEDALO_GEOIP_AUTO_UPDATE, DEDALO_GEOIP_DB_URL).

It is runtime state, not config — it lives in ../private/ts_state.json, written by the maintenance area, never by you

DEDALO_INSTALL_STATUS, DEDALO_MAINTENANCE_MODE, DEDALO_NOTIFICATION, DEDALO_TEST_INSTALL.

It moved out of Dédalo and into the environment

SERVER_PROXY — v6 passed this outbound proxy (host:port) to curl when Dédalo fetched code or an ontology from a remote master. v7 still makes those fetches, but has no Dédalo key for it: set the standard HTTPS_PROXY / HTTP_PROXY environment variables on the server process instead, which the engine's HTTP client honors.

TRUSTED_PROXY_HOPS is not its replacement

They point in opposite directions. SERVER_PROXY was about reaching out through a proxy. TRUSTED_PROXY_HOPS is about proxies in front of the server: how many reverse-proxy hops to trust when reading X-Forwarded-For to identify the client. Setting one where you meant the other is a security bug, not a migration.

Retired after the cutover

DEDALO_ENGINE_OWNS_INSTALL — the TS engine is the only engine now, so ownership is unconditional. The key is read by nothing.

Settings that are new in v7

Whole families have no v6 ancestor, because the subsystems are new: the HTTP server and Postgres pool (SERVER_UNIX_SOCKET, DB_POOL_MAX, …), the native session/login stack (SESSION_TTL_SECONDS, LOGIN_MAX_ATTEMPTS, …), media access control (DEDALO_MEDIA_ACCESS_MODE), the native diffusion engine (DEDALO_DIFFUSION_*), error reporting (DEDALO_ERROR_REPORT_*), and the RAG/AI/MCP subsystems (DEDALO_RAG_*, DEDALO_AGENT_*, DEDALO_MCP_*).

They are all optional and documented in the settings reference.

Where this table comes from

Every classification on this page is held in src/config/migration_map.ts, which the migration tool reads and a tripwire test checks against the keys the engine actually reads. It cannot drift from the code without failing the build.