Settings

Warning

The settings system is under development and may be subject to change.

Options are also configurable through settings files. See settings JSON file for the list of currently supported options.

After start Maigret tries to load configuration from the following sources in exactly the same order:

# relative path, based on installed package path
resources/settings.json

# absolute path, configuration file in home directory
~/.maigret/settings.json

# relative path, based on current working directory
settings.json

Missing any of these files is not an error. If the next settings file contains already known option, this option will be rewrited. So it is possible to make custom configuration for different users and directories.

Database auto-update

Maigret ships with a bundled site database, but it gets outdated between releases. To keep the database current, Maigret automatically checks for updates on startup.

How it works:

On startup, Maigret checks if more than 24 hours have passed since the last update check.
If so, it fetches a lightweight metadata file (~200 bytes) from GitHub to see if a newer database is available.
If a newer, compatible database exists, Maigret downloads it to ~/.maigret/data.json and uses it instead of the bundled copy.
If the download fails or the new database is incompatible with your Maigret version, the bundled database is used as a fallback.

The downloaded database has higher priority than the bundled one — it replaces, not overlays.

Status messages are printed only when an action occurs:

[*] DB auto-update: checking for updates...
[+] DB auto-update: database updated successfully (3180 sites)
[*] DB auto-update: database is up to date (3157 sites)
[!] DB auto-update: latest database requires maigret >= 0.6.0, you have 0.5.0

Forcing an update:

Use the --force-update flag to check for updates immediately, ignoring the check interval:

maigret username --force-update

The update happens at startup, then the search continues normally with the freshly downloaded database.

Disabling auto-update:

Use the --no-autoupdate flag to skip the update check entirely:

maigret username --no-autoupdate

Or set it permanently in ~/.maigret/settings.json:

{
    "no_autoupdate": true
}

This is recommended for Docker containers, CI pipelines, and air-gapped environments.

Configuration options (in settings.json):

Setting	Default	Description
`no_autoupdate`	`false`	Disable auto-update entirely
`autoupdate_check_interval_hours`	`24`	How often to check for updates (in hours)
`db_update_meta_url`	GitHub raw URL	URL of the metadata file (for custom mirrors)

Using a custom database with --db always skips auto-update — you are explicitly choosing your data source.

Cloudflare webgate

Warning

Experimental. The cloudflare_bypass block is under active development; field names, defaults, and the trigger-protection routing rules may change without backwards-compatibility guarantees.

The cloudflare_bypass block in settings.json configures the optional bypass described in Cloudflare webgate bypass. Default value:

{
    "cloudflare_bypass": {
        "enabled": false,
        "session_prefix": "maigret",
        "trigger_protection": ["cf_js_challenge", "cf_firewall", "webgate"],
        "modules": [
            {
                "name": "flaresolverr",
                "method": "json_api",
                "url": "http://localhost:8191/v1",
                "max_timeout_ms": 60000
            },
            {
                "name": "chrome_webgate",
                "method": "url_rewrite",
                "url": "http://localhost:8000/html?url={url}&retries=1"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Fields.

Field	Description
`enabled`	When `true`, the bypass is active for every run; when `false` (the default), it activates only on `--cloudflare-bypass`.
`trigger_protection`	List of `site.protection` values that route a check through the webgate. Sites whose protection is empty or doesn’t intersect this list use the default (aiohttp / curl_cffi) checker.
`session_prefix`	Prefix for the FlareSolverr `session` field. Maigret appends the process PID so concurrent runs don’t collide. Reusing a session caches cf_clearance between checks of the same domain.
`modules`	Ordered list of backend modules. The first reachable module handles the check; later ones serve as a fallback chain.

Module methods.

json_api — FlareSolverr-compatible POST endpoint at url. Preserves real upstream HTTP status, headers and final URL. Optional max_timeout_ms (default 60000) is the per-request budget the solver is allowed to spend on the JS challenge.
url_rewrite — legacy CloudflareBypassForScraping endpoint. The url must contain a {url} placeholder; the original probe URL is URL-encoded and substituted in. Returns rendered HTML only — checkType: status_code and response_url checks misfire under this method (treated as a synthetic HTTP 200 on success).

Optional ``proxy`` field (``json_api`` only).

A module may carry a proxy entry that the solver routes the upstream request through. Useful when a site enforces ip_reputation rules that block the solver host. Two forms are accepted:

{ "proxy": "socks5://localhost:1080" }

{ "proxy": { "url": "http://gw.example:3128",
             "username": "u",
             "password": "p" } }

Only url/username/password are forwarded; other keys are dropped. Cloudflare Error 1015 / 1020 responses indicate the IP is rate-limited or banned — switch the proxy rather than retrying. .. _ai-analysis-settings:

AI analysis

The --ai flag (see AI analysis (built-in)) talks to an OpenAI-compatible chat completion API. Three settings control how that request is made:

Setting	Default	Description
`openai_api_key`	`""` (empty)	API key. If empty, Maigret falls back to the `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable.
`openai_model`	`gpt-4o`	Default model name. Overridable per-run with `--ai-model`.
`openai_api_base_url`	`https://api.openai.com/v1`	Base URL of the chat completion API. Point this at any OpenAI-compatible service (Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, a local server, …) to use it instead of OpenAI directly.

Example ~/.maigret/settings.json snippet using a non-OpenAI endpoint:

{
    "openai_api_key": "sk-...",
    "openai_model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "openai_api_base_url": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
}

The key resolution order is settings.openai_api_key → OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable; the first non-empty value wins.

Note

--ai sends the full internal Markdown report (which contains the gathered profile data) to the configured endpoint. Only use providers and accounts you trust with that data.