docs / proxy/configuration

Proxy configuration

Every environment variable, threshold, and fallback behaviour the proxy exposes.

⏱ 10 min read

Environment variables

VARIABLE	REQUIRED	DEFAULT	DESCRIPTION
EKMIRE_API_KEY	yes	—	Project API key.
EKMIRE_UPSTREAM	yes	—	Upstream app URL, e.g. `http://app:3000`.
EKMIRE_CLOUD	no	`https://api.ekmire.com`	Control plane endpoint.
EKMIRE_TARPIT_THRESHOLD_MS	no	800	Sub-millisecond requests below this are treated as automated.
EKMIRE_TARPIT_CONSECUTIVE	no	3	Consecutive matches before tarpit engages.
EKMIRE_SEMANTIC_BLOCK_SCORE	no	0.85	LLM risk score above which requests block.
EKMIRE_SEMANTIC_LOG_SCORE	no	0.60	Score above which requests are logged but not blocked.
EKMIRE_SEMANTIC_FALLBACK	no	pass	When LLM is unavailable: `pass` or `block`.
EKMIRE_LLM_TIMEOUT_MS	no	1500	LLM call timeout. Above this, fallback applies.
EKMIRE_SCRAPER_POISON	no	true	Inject zero-width watermarks into responses served to known scrapers.

Full Docker Compose example

services:
  ekmire-proxy:
    image: ghcr.io/flux8labs/ekmire-proxy:latest
    ports: ["8080:8080"]
    environment:
      EKMIRE_API_KEY: ${EKMIRE_API_KEY}
      EKMIRE_UPSTREAM: http://app:3000
      EKMIRE_SEMANTIC_BLOCK_SCORE: "0.85"
      EKMIRE_SEMANTIC_FALLBACK: pass
      EKMIRE_TARPIT_THRESHOLD_MS: "800"
    depends_on: [app]

  app:
    build: .
    expose: ["3000"]
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: ${DATABASE_URL}

Threshold tuning

The semantic block score is the threshold above which a request is blocked outright. Lower this if you are missing attacks. Raise this if you are seeing false positives.

The semantic log score is the threshold above which a request is recorded as suspicious but allowed through. Use the gap between log and block to triage borderline cases without false-positive churn.

Most production deployments converge on block=0.85, log=0.60. Aggressive deployments push block down to 0.75; lenient deployments raise it to 0.92.

Semantic fallback

When the LLM provider is unavailable or exceeds EKMIRE_LLM_TIMEOUT_MS, the proxy falls back to the configured behaviour:

pass (default) — the request proceeds. Deterministic rules still run. Use when availability matters more than catching the semantic layer.
block — the request is blocked with a 503. Use only when you would rather have an outage than ship an unanalysed payload. This is a serious choice; review carefully.

WARNINGIf you set fallback to block and your LLM provider goes down, every request to your app is blocked. Test with chaos drills before enabling in production.

Detection pipeline