> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mage.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Configuring Mage settings backend

## Overview

<Note>
  Available in Mage versions >= 0.9.66

  Not all Mage settings can be read through a settings backend. You can find a list of settings
  that can be read through a settings backend [here](https://github.com/mage-ai/mage-ai/blob/master/mage_ai/settings/keys/__init__.py).

  When any settings backend is enabled, Mage will first attempt to read the settings value
  from the settings backend before falling back to environment variables.
</Note>

By default, many of Mage's configurable settings are read from environment variables. This may make sense
for more settings, but there are some settings that are too sensitive to be stored as environment
variables.

You can configure a settings backend to read settings from a different source. To set this up, you will
need to add a `settings_backend` section to your project's `metadata.yaml` file.

```yaml theme={"system"}

settings_backend:
  backend_type: ...

```

Only the `backend_type` field is required for all settings backends. The other fields will be passed
to the backend as keyword arguments when initializing the backend.

See below sections for the different types of settings backends that are available.

## AWS Secrets Manager

When the AWS Secrets Manager settings backend is enabled, Mage will read the value from the
AWS secret name: `{prefix}{settings_name}`. For example if the setting is `OKTA_CLIENT_SECRET`
and the prefix is `default_repo/settings/`, Mage will fetch the value for `default_repo/settings/OKTA_CLIENT_SECRET`.

```yaml theme={"system"}

settings_backend:
  backend_type: aws_secrets_manager
  prefix: default_repo/settings/  # optional
  use_cache: true  # optional
  cache_config:  # optional
    max_cache_size: 1024
    exception_retry_delay_base: 1
    exception_retry_growth_factor: 2
    exception_retry_delay_max: 3600
    default_version_stage: "AWSCURRENT"
    secret_refresh_interval: 3600  # in seconds

```

Optional fields:

* `prefix`: A prefix to add to the settings name when fetching the value from AWS Secrets Manager.
* `use_cache`: Whether to use a cache for the settings backend. Defaults to `false`.
* `cache_config`: configuration options for the cache if `use_cache` is `true`.
  * `max_cache_size` (int): The maximum number of secrets to cache.
  * `exception_retry_delay_base` (int): The number of seconds to wait after an exception is encountered and before retrying the request.
  * `exception_retry_growth_factor` (int): The growth factor to use for calculating the wait time between retries of failed requests.
  * `exception_retry_delay_max` (int): The maximum amount of time in seconds to wait between failed requests.
  * `default_version_stage` (str): The default version stage to request.
  * `secret_refresh_interval` (int): The number of seconds to wait between refreshing cached secret information.