Environment Variables

Environment Variables#

Environment variables used by the AIM Engine operator and artifact downloader.

Variable	Description
`AIM_SYSTEM_NAMESPACE`	Namespace where the operator is deployed. Set automatically by the deployment.
`POD_NAME`	Operator pod name. Used for discovery lock identity.

These are set automatically by the operator on download jobs.

Variable	Default	Description
`AIM_DOWNLOADER_PROTOCOL`	`XET,HF_TRANSFER`	Comma-separated protocol sequence for Hugging Face downloads. Tried in order; falls back on failure.
`MOUNT_PATH`	`/cache`	PVC mount path in the download container.
`TARGET_DIR`	`/cache`	Download target directory.
`EXPECTED_SIZE_BYTES`	(computed)	Expected model size in bytes.
`ARTIFACT_NAME`	(from resource)	Name of the AIMArtifact resource.
`ARTIFACT_NAMESPACE`	(from resource)	Namespace of the AIMArtifact resource.
`STALL_TIMEOUT`	`120`	Seconds to wait before considering a download stalled.
`TMPDIR`	`/tmp/`	Temporary directory for downloads.
`HF_HOME`	`/tmp/.hf`	Hugging Face cache directory.

The AIM_DOWNLOADER_PROTOCOL variable accepts a comma-separated list of:

Protocol	Description
`XET`	XetHub protocol — fastest for large models
`HF_TRANSFER`	Hugging Face Transfer — optimized multi-part download
`HTTP`	Standard HTTP — slowest but most compatible

The downloader tries each protocol in order. On failure, it cleans up .incomplete files and moves to the next protocol.

These are set on inference containers by the operator:

Variable	Source	Description
`AIM_CACHE_PATH`	Constant	Base path for cached model artifacts.
`VLLM_ENABLE_METRICS`	Constant	Always `true` — enables vLLM Prometheus metrics.
`AIM_ID`	Template	AIM product family identifier (e.g., `meta-llama/Llama-3-8B`). Set when the template has a `customProfile`. Determines the model-specific profile search path and serves as a fallback model identifier. Mutually exclusive with `AIM_MODEL_ID`.
`AIM_PROFILE_ID`	Template	Active profile identifier. For standard templates, set from the discovered profile. For custom profile templates, set to `custom/{aimId}/{profileName}` to explicitly select the custom profile, bypassing the runtime’s normal profile selection logic.
`AIM_METRIC`	Template	Optimization metric (`latency` or `throughput`).
`AIM_PRECISION`	Template	Model precision (e.g., `fp16`, `fp8`).
`AIM_MODEL_ID`	Template	Model identifier for custom models (base container deployments). Mutually exclusive with `AIM_ID`.
`AIM_ENGINE_ARGS`	Merged	JSON-encoded engine arguments, merged from service, template, runtime config, and profile. Can override individual keys from a custom profile’s `engine_args` at deploy time.

When the same variable is set at multiple levels, the most specific wins:

AIMService.spec.env (highest priority)
AIMServiceTemplate.spec.env (plus template-derived vars such as metric/precision/profile)
Merged runtime config env (AIMRuntimeConfig.spec.env overriding AIMClusterRuntimeConfig.spec.env)
Operator defaults (lowest priority)