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Almost every setting has two names for one thing. There is a slash command you use in a session, and there is a variable name. They are the same setting because config.json is keyed on the variable names themselves, so /trajectory off and export SERI_TRAJECTORY_ENABLED=false write and read the same key. Use the command. The variable is for scripting a machine you are not sitting at.

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Which wins

The environment, then ~/.seri/config.json, then the built-in default. A variable set to the empty string counts as unset and falls through to config.json rather than winning as a valid-looking blank.
A variable exported in your shell beats the slash command, including afterwards. Setting SERI_TRAJECTORY_ENABLED and then running /trajectory on writes config.json and changes nothing the next time you start, because the variable still wins. seri says so when you do it rather than letting the setting look changed when it is not. If a command appears to do nothing, check your environment first.
Every true/false setting is on unless the value is exactly false. A typo cannot silently disable a feature.

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Provider credentials

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Model

A /model pick persists both keys once a turn has actually succeeded on it, so setting them by hand is the scripted equivalent of picking one.

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Subagent roles

<ROLE> is the uppercased role name: SERI_ROLE_ORACLE_MODEL, SERI_ROLE_CODE_PROVIDER. These supply a default for when a dispatch does not name a pair, which is how a script, and the archivist, get a model of their own. Set both or neither. They are one pin, not two settings. _MODEL on its own is inert, and a _PROVIDER that is not one of the six provider ids drops the pin rather than half-applying it. The role then falls back to the session model.

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Checking code after a write

Both take effect on the next run rather than mid-session.

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Memory

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Trajectories

A retention value that is not a positive whole number falls back to 30 rather than failing. Retention applies only to .jsonl recordings left by an older release. Recordings now go into seri.db, and rows there are not aged out.

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Profile

The flag wins over the variable. /profile new <name> creates a profile from inside a session but does not switch the running one.

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Settings with no variable

/mode and /max-turns last for the session and are never written to config.json. --dangerously-skip-permissions and --max-turns are launch flags with no variable either. See Launching seri.

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What this page leaves out

seri reads a handful of other SERI_* variables that point it at a different gateway, identity service or model-catalog endpoint, or that skip a check during testing. They are deployment and test escape hatches rather than settings, they have no stable contract, and setting one by accident is a worse outcome than not knowing it exists.