Environment

Use [app.env] for environment variables that should be visible inside the Lua runtime and any shell commands launched by widgets. EasyBar inherits the parent process environment and overlays these configured values.

Example

[app]
widgets_dir = "~/.config/easybar/widgets"
lua_path = "lua"
runtime_dir = "~/.local/state/easybar/runtime"

[app.env]
PATH = "/usr/local/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"
TAILSCALE = "/usr/local/bin/tailscale"

PATH behavior

EasyBar resolves PATH in this order:

1. If [app.env] sets PATH, EasyBar overlays that exact value onto the inherited process environment.
2. If [app.env] does not set PATH, EasyBar uses the default PATH shown below so GUI-launched sessions can still find common tools.

/usr/local/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

EasyBar environment overrides

EasyBar supports a small, explicit set of process-level overrides:

Variable	Purpose
EASYBAR_CONFIG_PATH	Selects the runtime config file.
EASYBAR_RUNTIME_DIR	Overrides [app].runtime_dir.
EASYBAR_LOG_LEVEL	Temporarily overrides [logging].level.

EASYBAR_RUNTIME_DIR is read by the app, CLI, and helper agents. Derived socket and lock defaults therefore remain consistent across processes.

For the runtime directory, precedence is:

EASYBAR_RUNTIME_DIR
→ app.runtime_dir
→ built-in default

Explicit lua_socket_path, lock_dir, or agent socket_path values still override their derived defaults.

EasyBar does not perform generic shell-style $VARIABLE expansion inside config values. Paths support ~ expansion only.

Why this matters

GUI-launched macOS apps do not normally inherit your shell startup files such as .zshrc.

Set [app.env] when Lua widgets need tools such as:

• brew
• tailscale
• kubectl
• custom scripts
• package-manager commands