Environment variables

Nuclei supports various environment variables that allow you to configure its behavior without command-line flags. This is particularly useful for automation, CI/CD pipelines, and containerized environments.

Core environment variables

Template signing

NUCLEI_SIGNATURE_PRIVATE_KEY

string

Private key used for signing templates. Required when using the -sign flag.

export NUCLEI_SIGNATURE_PRIVATE_KEY="path/to/private.key"
nuclei -sign -t templates/

NUCLEI_SIGNATURE_PUBLIC_KEY

string

Public key used for verifying template signatures.

export NUCLEI_SIGNATURE_PUBLIC_KEY="path/to/public.key"

Template locations

NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_PATH

string

Override the default templates directory location.

export NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_PATH="/custom/templates/path"

Authentication

GITHUB_TOKEN

string

GitHub personal access token for:

Downloading private templates from GitHub
Creating issues via GitHub integration
Avoiding rate limits

export GITHUB_TOKEN="ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

GITLAB_TOKEN

string

GitLab personal access token for GitLab integrations.

export GITLAB_TOKEN="glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxx"

JIRA_API_TOKEN

string

Jira API token for issue tracking integration.

export JIRA_API_TOKEN="your-api-token"

Cloud integration

PDCP_API_KEY

string

ProjectDiscovery Cloud Platform API key for cloud integration.

export PDCP_API_KEY="pdcp_xxxxxxxxxxxx"
nuclei -target example.com -dashboard

AWS credentials

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

string

AWS access key for S3 template storage and AWS-related templates.

AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

string

AWS secret access key.

AWS_REGION

string

AWS region for S3 operations. Defaults to us-east-1.

Azure credentials

AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT

string

Azure storage account name for Azure Blob Storage templates.

AZURE_STORAGE_KEY

string

Azure storage account access key.

Debug and development

DEBUG

boolean

Enable debug output for troubleshooting.

export DEBUG=true
nuclei -target example.com

SHOW_DSL_ERRORS

boolean

Show DSL function execution errors in output.

export SHOW_DSL_ERRORS=true

DEBUG_TEMPLATES

string

Debug specific templates by path or ID.

export DEBUG_TEMPLATES="cves/2021/CVE-2021-44228.yaml"

Proxy configuration

HTTP_PROXY

string

HTTP proxy server for Nuclei requests.

export HTTP_PROXY="http://proxy.example.com:8080"

HTTPS_PROXY

string

HTTPS proxy server.

export HTTPS_PROXY="http://proxy.example.com:8443"

NO_PROXY

string

Comma-separated list of domains to bypass proxy.

export NO_PROXY="localhost,127.0.0.1,.internal.com"

Interactsh configuration

INTERACTSH_SERVER

string

Custom Interactsh server URL for OAST testing.

export INTERACTSH_SERVER="https://interactsh.example.com"

INTERACTSH_TOKEN

string

Authentication token for self-hosted Interactsh servers.

export INTERACTSH_TOKEN="your-token"

Output and reporting

MARKDOWN_EXPORT_SORT_MODE

string

Sort mode for Markdown exports. Options: template, severity, host.

export MARKDOWN_EXPORT_SORT_MODE="template"
nuclei -target example.com -markdown-export report/

CI/CD integration examples

GitHub Actions

name: Nuclei Scan
on: [push]

jobs:
  security-scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Run Nuclei
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          PDCP_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.PDCP_API_KEY }}
        run: |
          nuclei -target ${{ github.event.repository.url }} \
            -json-export results.json \
            -dashboard

GitLab CI

security-scan:
  stage: test
  variables:
    GITLAB_TOKEN: $CI_JOB_TOKEN
    DEBUG: "true"
  script:
    - nuclei -target $CI_PROJECT_URL -json-export results.json
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - results.json

Docker

docker run \
  -e GITHUB_TOKEN="$GITHUB_TOKEN" \
  -e PDCP_API_KEY="$PDCP_API_KEY" \
  -v $(pwd)/results:/results \
  projectdiscovery/nuclei:latest \
  -target example.com \
  -json-export /results/output.json

Secrets management

Never commit credentials or API tokens to version control. Use your CI/CD platform’s secrets management or environment-specific .env files.

Using .env files locally

Create a .env file (add to .gitignore):

# .env
GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxx
PDCP_API_KEY=pdcp_xxxxxxxxxxxx
JIRA_API_TOKEN=your-jira-token

Load it before running Nuclei:

source .env
nuclei -target example.com

Using Docker secrets

# Create secrets
echo "your-token" | docker secret create github_token -

# Use in Docker Compose
services:
  nuclei:
    image: projectdiscovery/nuclei:latest
    secrets:
      - github_token
    environment:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: /run/secrets/github_token

Variable precedence

Configuration is applied in this order (later overrides earlier):

Default values
Configuration file (~/.config/nuclei/config.yaml)
Environment variables
Command-line flags

Environment variables are useful when you need different settings per environment (dev/staging/prod) without changing code.

Best practices

Use secrets management

Store sensitive tokens in:

GitHub Secrets (GitHub Actions)
GitLab CI/CD Variables (GitLab CI)
Azure Key Vault (Azure Pipelines)
AWS Secrets Manager (AWS environments)
HashiCorp Vault (enterprise)

Rotate credentials regularly

Set expiration dates on API tokens and rotate them periodically. Update your CI/CD secrets when rotating.

Use least privilege

Grant tokens only the minimum permissions needed:

GitHub: repo scope for private templates
Jira: Issue creation only
Cloud platforms: Read-only for templates

Isolate environments

Use different tokens for dev/staging/prod environments to limit blast radius of compromised credentials.

Troubleshooting

Environment variables not working

Check:

Variable is properly exported: echo $VARIABLE_NAME
No typos in variable names (they’re case-sensitive)
Command-line flags don’t override the environment variable
Restart shell session after setting variables

Authentication failures

Verify:

Token is valid and not expired
Token has required permissions/scopes
No extra whitespace in token value
Token format is correct for the service

Proxy issues

Debug with:

export DEBUG=true
nuclei -target example.com -debug-req

Check:

Proxy URL format is correct
Proxy is accessible from your environment
NO_PROXY excludes internal domains if needed

Next steps

Reporting integrations

Set up Jira, Slack, and other integrations

Authentication

Configure authentication for private templates

Get Started

Core Concepts

Using Nuclei

Configuration

Advanced Features

Environment variables

Core environment variables

Template signing

Template locations

Authentication

Cloud integration

AWS credentials

Azure credentials

Debug and development

Proxy configuration

Interactsh configuration

Output and reporting

CI/CD integration examples

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI

Docker

Secrets management

Using .env files locally

Using Docker secrets

Variable precedence

Best practices

Troubleshooting

Next steps

Reporting integrations

Authentication

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get Started

Core Concepts

Using Nuclei

Configuration

Advanced Features

​Core environment variables

​Template signing

​Template locations

​Authentication

​Cloud integration

​AWS credentials

​Azure credentials

​Debug and development

​Proxy configuration

​Interactsh configuration

​Output and reporting

​CI/CD integration examples

​GitHub Actions

​GitLab CI

​Docker

​Secrets management

​Using .env files locally

​Using Docker secrets

​Variable precedence

​Best practices

​Troubleshooting

​Next steps

Reporting integrations

Authentication

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Core environment variables

Template signing

Template locations

Authentication

Cloud integration

AWS credentials

Azure credentials

Debug and development

Proxy configuration

Interactsh configuration

Output and reporting

CI/CD integration examples

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI

Docker

Secrets management

Using .env files locally

Using Docker secrets

Variable precedence

Best practices

Troubleshooting

Next steps