Configuration#

bite keeps its configuration in one file, ~/Library/Application Support/bite/config.toml, created on first run. Every key is optional; bite works with an empty file. Read and write it with bite config (bite config get <key>, bite config set <key> <value>), or edit the file — it is read once per process at startup.

Keys#

Key	Type	Default	What it does
`default_calendar`	string	—	Calendar id or name used when a create omits `calendar_id`.
`default_mail_account`	string	—	Account name used when a mail tool omits `account`.
`timeout_secs`	integer	300	Per-request bridge timeout, in seconds — how long one Apple Event call may take before the helper is recycled.
`release_repo`	string	the GitHub repo	Where release artifacts come from (used by the planned prebuilt-helper channel).
`auto_refresh_hours`	integer	24	Entity-index auto-refresh threshold: how stale the index may get before a crawl is respawned.

Environment#

Variable	Overrides
`BITE_TIMEOUT_SECS`	`timeout_secs` — wins over the config file. Useful for a slow Mail setup or a one-off long bulk operation.

What's where#

Everything bite stores lives under one directory, ~/Library/Application Support/bite, enforced to 0700 (files 0600) at every startup:

Path	Contents
`config.toml`	the configuration above
`bin/bite-helper`	the native Swift helper, at a stable path so macOS permission grants survive refreshes
`bin/bite-crawl`	the detached Mail crawl worker
`index.lance/`	the LanceDB entity index
`batches/`	staged crawl batches, ingested then deleted
`batches/quarantine/`	unparseable batches, capped at 200 files
`crawl-state.json`, `crawl.pid`	crawl progress and worker pid
`purge-scopes.json`	durable `index_forget` tombstones

Deleting the directory is the complete uninstall — nothing else on the system references it.

The CLI flags every command takes#

Flag	Effect
`--json`	compact machine-readable JSON instead of the pretty default
`--force-live`	accept slow live Apple Events queries even while Mail indexing runs, instead of the deferred feedback