Configuration Reference

SPEED is configured via a project-level speed.toml file. All configuration values can also be overridden by environment variables.

Precedence

Configuration is resolved in the following order (highest to lowest):

1. Command-line flags (e.g., --verbose, --max-parallel)
2. Environment variables (e.g., SPEED_VERBOSITY)
3. speed.toml settings
4. Built-in defaults

Agent Settings

Configure the AI providers and model tiers used by the orchestrator.

TOML Key	Environment Var	Default	Description
agent.provider	SPEED_PROVIDER	claude-code	The agent CLI provider to use.
agent.planning_model	SPEED_PLANNING_MODEL	opus	Model used for high-stakes reasoning (Architect, Verifier).
agent.support_model	SPEED_SUPPORT_MODEL	sonnet	Model used for structured support tasks (Guardian, Reviewer).
agent.timeout	SPEED_TIMEOUT	600	Max seconds allowed for a single agent run.
agent.max_turns	SPEED_MAX_TURNS	50	Max conversation turns allowed for developer agents.

Rate Limiting

Budget tracking for API usage to prevent account throttling.

TOML Key	Environment Var	Default	Description
rate.tpm_budget	SPEED_TPM_BUDGET	200000	Tokens Per Minute budget. SPEED will pace calls at 80% of this.
rate.rpm_budget	SPEED_RPM_BUDGET	5	Requests Per Minute budget.

Specification Settings

TOML Key	Environment Var	Default	Description
specs.vision_file	SPEED_VISION_FILE	specs/product/overview.md	Path to the project’s product vision document.

User Interface

TOML Key	Environment Var	Default	Description
ui.theme	SPEED_THEME	default	default or colorblind.
ui.ascii	SPEED_ASCII	false	Use ASCII-only symbols (e.g., [ok] vs ✓).
ui.verbosity	SPEED_VERBOSITY	1	0 (quiet), 1 (normal), 2 (verbose), 3 (debug).

Advanced Mapping

[subsystems]

Maps subsystem names to glob patterns. This enables targeted quality gates (e.g., running different tests for “frontend” vs “backend”).

[subsystems]
"frontend" = ["src/frontend/**"]
"backend" = ["src/backend/**"]

[worktree.symlinks]

Declares directories that should be symlinked from the main repository into every git worktree. Essential for sharing node_modules or virtual environments to avoid re-installing dependencies for every task.

[worktree.symlinks]
"src/frontend/node_modules" = "src/frontend/node_modules"
"src/backend/.venv" = "src/backend/.venv"