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Authentication and your secret keys

When you trigger a task from your backend code, you need to set the TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY environment variable.

Each environment has its own secret key. You can find the value on the API keys page in the Trigger.dev dashboard:

For preview branches, you need to also set the TRIGGER_PREVIEW_BRANCH environment variable as well. You can find the value on the API keys page when you’re on the preview branch.

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Automatically Configuring the SDK

To automatically configure the SDK with your secret key, you can set the TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY environment variable. The SDK will automatically use this value when calling API methods (like trigger).

.env
TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY="tr_dev_…"
TRIGGER_PREVIEW_BRANCH="my-branch" # Only needed for preview branches

You can do the same if you are self-hosting and need to change the default URL by using TRIGGER_API_URL.

.env
TRIGGER_API_URL="https://trigger.example.com"
TRIGGER_PREVIEW_BRANCH="my-branch" # Only needed for preview branches

The default URL is https://api.trigger.dev.

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Manually Configuring the SDK

If you prefer to manually configure the SDK, you can call the configure method:

import { configure } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { myTask } from "./trigger/myTasks";

configure({
  secretKey: "tr_dev_1234", // WARNING: Never actually hardcode your secret key like this
  previewBranch: "my-branch", // Only needed for preview branches
  baseURL: "https://mytrigger.example.com", // Optional
});

async function triggerTask() {
  await myTask.trigger({ userId: "1234" }); // This will use the secret key and base URL you configured
}