Configuration

admin_config.php provides the central runtime configuration interface for Open Clinical History.

Application settings are stored in the app_config database table and accessed through lib/app_config.php. These settings are separate from deployment-level configuration such as database connection details.

The page also manages API bearer tokens through the api_token table.

Configuration architecture

Runtime configuration follows this general flow:

Admin → Configuration
        |
        v
admin_config.php
        |
        v
AppConfig::set(...)
        |
        v
app_config database table
        |
        +------------------------+
        |                        |
        v                        v
AppConfig::get()           AppConfig::llmLimits()
        |                        |
        v                        v
Application code           Clinical processing pipeline

The app_config table is the source of truth for application runtime settings.

Values are stored with:

Changes made through the Configuration page take effect without modifying PHP configuration files.

Dates

Date format

Configuration key

date_format

Default

dd/mm/yyyy

Allowed values

Value Example
dd/mm/yyyy 25/08/2026
mm/dd/yyyy 08/25/2026

Controls how dates are displayed throughout the user interface.

It also determines how non-ISO dates submitted through the API are interpreted.

ISO dates using:

YYYY-MM-DD

are always accepted regardless of this setting.

Machine integrations should therefore use ISO dates wherever possible.

Used by

SNOMED CT RF2

RF2 release path

Configuration key

snomed_release_path

Default

Blank.

Example

/var/www/private/snomed/SnomedCT_Release_AU1000036_20260731

Specifies the server location of the SNOMED CT RF2 distribution used by the SNOMED import process.

The value may point to:

The path must be an absolute server path beginning with /.

Trailing / characters are removed when the setting is saved.

If the setting is blank, the SNOMED subsystem falls back to its built-in private-folder discovery mechanism.

Temporary override

snomed_import.php can temporarily override the configured directory using:

?dir=/full/path/to/release

The configured value remains unchanged.

Used by

Gemini / LLM

Enable LLM processing

Configuration key

llm_enabled

Default

Enabled.

Controls whether Open Clinical History is allowed to perform LLM processing.

When disabled, LlmFactory refuses to create an LLM provider and model-dependent extraction fails with a configuration error.

Disabling this setting therefore disables functionality including model-assisted clinical extraction, terminology processing and other AI-dependent pipeline stages.

LLM provider

Configuration key

llm_provider

Current value

gemini

The current administration page does not provide a provider selector.

Whenever configuration is saved, admin_config.php explicitly sets:

llm_provider = gemini

The underlying LLM factory is designed to support provider selection, but the current implementation only recognises Gemini.

Gemini API key

Configuration key

llm_gemini_api_key

Default

Blank.

Stores the Gemini API credential used by the LLM provider.

For security, the existing key is never rendered back into the configuration page.

If the API key field is left blank when saving the page, the existing key is retained.

The Clear the stored Gemini API key option explicitly replaces the stored value with an empty string.

Security

Unlike Open Clinical History API bearer tokens, the Gemini API key must remain retrievable by the application and is therefore stored as a configuration value in app_config.

Database access to app_config should consequently be treated as secret-bearing access.

Gemini model

Configuration key

llm_gemini_model

Default

gemini-3.5-flash-lite

Determines which Gemini model is used for LLM operations.

The configured value may contain:

A-Z
a-z
0-9
.
_
-

The configuration page validates the syntax of the model name but does not verify with Gemini that the model actually exists.

Provider limits

Gemini timeout

Configuration key

llm_gemini_timeout_seconds

Default

120 seconds

Allowed range

10 to 600 seconds

Sets the maximum HTTP request time allowed for a Gemini request.

A request exceeding this period is treated as a model/API failure.

Daily request cap

Configuration key

llm_daily_request_cap

Default

4000

Controls the maximum number of Gemini requests permitted per day.

A value of:

0

means unlimited.

Before making a model request, the LLM budget manager checks current daily usage. Once the configured request count has been reached, further calls are rejected before Gemini is contacted.

This provides a hard cost and usage protection mechanism.

Daily token cap

Configuration key

llm_daily_token_cap

Default

4,000,000

Controls the total number of recorded prompt and output tokens permitted per day.

A value of:

0

means unlimited.

The budget check uses:

prompt tokens + output tokens

from recorded daily usage.

Once the cap is reached, additional LLM requests are blocked.

Maximum output tokens per request

Configuration key

llm_max_output_tokens

Default

4096

Configuration range

256 to 131072

Sets the requested maximum response size sent to the Gemini provider.

Larger values allow the model to produce larger structured responses but can increase:

The actual maximum may also be constrained by the capabilities of the selected Gemini model.

Maximum prompt characters per request

Configuration key

llm_max_chars_per_request

Default

24000

Allowed range

8000 to 1,000,000 characters

Provides a hard application-level limit on the total size of the system and user prompt sent in a single LLM request.

The budget manager calculates:

strlen(system prompt) + strlen(user prompt)

before contacting Gemini.

Requests exceeding the configured limit are rejected locally.

This setting also influences the safe batch size used by SNOMED grounding and repair.

Document extraction

Maximum characters per legacy chunk

Configuration key

llm_max_chars_per_chunk

Default

4500

Allowed range

500 to 100,000

Controls the target maximum size of chunks created by the legacy document chunking pipeline.

Large source documents are divided into sections before further processing.

Increasing this value creates fewer, larger chunks.

Decreasing it creates more, smaller chunks.

Maximum chunks per document

Configuration key

llm_max_chunks_per_document

Default

40

Allowed range

1 to 500

Limits the number of legacy chunks generated for a document.

If a document would generate more chunks than this limit, the excess chunks are truncated and are not processed.

This is therefore a processing completeness limit, not merely a performance setting.

A very low value can result in part of a long clinical record not being processed.

Maximum characters per source segment

Configuration key

llm_max_chars_per_source_segment

Default

2800

Admin UI range

500 to 100,000

Effective runtime range

1200 to 5000

Controls the size of source segments produced by the current segmentation pipeline.

Oversized source sections are divided into smaller pieces before extraction.

The segmentation service currently clamps the value internally:

minimum 1200
maximum 5000

Consequently, setting a value such as 10000 in the administration page does not produce 10,000-character source segments. The runtime uses 5,000.

Maximum characters per extraction batch

Configuration key

llm_max_chars_per_extraction_batch

Default

6500

Admin UI range

1000 to 1,000,000

Effective minimum

1500

Controls how much source text can be grouped into one clinical extraction request.

Extraction batches are built until either:

Whichever limit is reached first closes the batch.

Maximum segments per extraction batch

Configuration key

llm_max_segments_per_extraction_batch

Default

6

Admin UI range

1 to 100

Effective runtime range

1 to 10

Controls how many source segments may be sent to the extraction model in one request.

The extraction service currently imposes a hard maximum of 10 regardless of the higher value allowed by the administration page.

Retry behaviour

Transient retries

Configuration key

llm_transient_retries

Default

1

Admin UI range

0 to 10

Effective runtime range

0 to 3

Determines how many times a transient Gemini/API error can be retried.

Only errors classified as transient are retried.

A value of 0 disables application-level retries.

The current pipeline caps retries at three even if a higher value is configured.

Retry delay

Configuration key

llm_transient_retry_delay_seconds

Default

4 seconds

Admin UI range

0 to 300 seconds

Effective runtime range

1 to 30 seconds

Sets the base delay between transient retries.

The retry code applies an increasing delay based on the retry attempt:

delay × attempt number

With the default value of four seconds:

Retry 1: 4 seconds
Retry 2: 8 seconds
Retry 3: 12 seconds

Although the UI accepts zero, the runtime enforces a minimum of one second.

Advanced SNOMED grounding and repair

These settings control the terminology-resolution pipeline after clinical events have been extracted.

The normal flow is conceptually:

Extract clinical event
        |
        v
Generate local SNOMED candidates
        |
        v
Grounded LLM resolution
        |
        +---- confident result ----> accept
        |
        +---- unresolved/suspicious
                    |
                    v
                critic
                    |
                    v
             optional repair
                    |
                    v
             re-run grounding

Enable AI-assisted SNOMED repair

Configuration key

llm_enable_snomed_ai_repair

Default

Disabled.

Allows the pipeline to use model-assisted repair when normal terminology grounding cannot confidently resolve an event.

When disabled, unresolved mappings do not enter the AI repair pathway.

This is separate from normal grounded terminology resolution.

Grounded batch characters

Configuration key

llm_grounded_batch_chars

Default

18000

Admin UI range

1000 to 1,000,000

Effective minimum

6000

Controls the target maximum size of a grounded SNOMED resolution batch.

The actual batch budget is also constrained by llm_max_chars_per_request.

The pipeline reserves approximately 4,500 characters for prompt overhead:

effective budget =
min(
    grounded_batch_chars,
    max(6000, max_chars_per_request - 4500)
)

With the defaults:

max_chars_per_request = 24000
grounded_batch_chars  = 18000

effective budget = 18000

Candidate limit

Configuration key

llm_grounded_candidate_limit

Default

12

Admin UI range

1 to 100

Effective runtime range

4 to 20

Controls the maximum number of locally generated SNOMED candidates supplied for each event during grounded terminology resolution.

More candidates can improve recall but also:

The runtime currently limits the value to 20.

Search terms per event

Configuration key

llm_grounded_search_terms_per_event

Default

5

Admin UI range

1 to 20

Effective runtime range

1 to 8

Controls how many clinical search expressions may be used to locate local SNOMED candidates for an event.

The runtime currently caps this value at eight.

Resolution minimum confidence

Configuration key

llm_grounded_resolution_min_confidence

Default

0.72

Allowed range

0.00 to 1.00

Specifies the minimum confidence required before a grounded model-selected SNOMED candidate is accepted.

Higher values make terminology resolution more conservative.

Lower values permit weaker matches to be accepted.

For clinical terminology, this setting should be changed cautiously because it directly influences whether a proposed terminology match is accepted.

SNOMED repair

Repair rounds

Configuration key

llm_grounded_repair_rounds

Default

2

Admin UI range

0 to 10

Effective runtime range

0 to 3

Sets the number of terminology repair cycles permitted for unresolved or suspicious matches.

A value of zero disables repair rounds even if the AI repair pathway is otherwise enabled.

The runtime currently permits a maximum of three rounds.

Repair candidate limit

Configuration key

llm_grounded_repair_candidate_limit

Default

15

Admin UI range

1 to 100

Effective runtime range

4 to 20

Controls how many SNOMED candidates may be considered when an event is being re-evaluated during repair.

Repair deliberately uses a separate limit from first-pass terminology grounding.

Repair search terms per event

Configuration key

llm_grounded_repair_search_terms_per_event

Default

6

Admin UI range

1 to 20

Effective runtime range

1 to 8

Controls how many revised search expressions may be used when attempting to resolve an event during a repair round.

Repair maximum terms

Configuration key

llm_grounded_repair_max_terms

Default

6

Admin UI range

1 to 20

Effective runtime range

2 to 8

Limits the final collection of SNOMED search terms assembled for a repaired event.

The terms may originate from:

Duplicates are normalised before the limit is applied.

Repair batch characters

Configuration key

llm_grounded_repair_batch_chars

Default

15000

Admin UI range

1000 to 1,000,000

Effective minimum

6000

Controls the target size of LLM batches used to plan terminology repair.

The actual limit is constrained by the global prompt limit:

effective budget =
min(
    grounded_repair_batch_chars,
    max(6000, max_chars_per_request - 5000)
)

The reserved space accommodates system instructions and additional repair context.

Grounded critic

Enable grounded critic pass

Configuration key

llm_grounded_critic_enabled

Default

Enabled.

Enables an additional quality-control pass for grounded SNOMED resolutions.

The critic can flag a mapping for repair when:

This provides an additional safeguard against plausible but poorly grounded terminology selections.

Critic minimum confidence

Configuration key

llm_grounded_critic_min_confidence

Default

0.85

Allowed range

0.00 to 1.00

Defines the confidence level below which a grounded AI terminology match is considered worthy of critic review.

This differs from the resolution minimum confidence.

Conceptually:

Anatomy and body-layer selection

Body selection batch size

Configuration key

llm_body_selection_batch_size

Default

8

Admin UI range

1 to 100

Effective runtime range

1 to 16

Controls how many clinical events requiring AI-assisted anatomical layer selection are processed in a single model batch.

The body-layer model receives:

The runtime currently caps the batch size at 16 events.

Body candidate limit

Configuration key

llm_body_candidate_limit

Default

8

Admin UI range

1 to 100

Effective runtime range

3 to 15

Controls how many candidate anatomical image layers may be presented to the body-layer selection model.

Candidate layers are ranked before this limit is applied.

The model may select zero to four layers from those supplied candidates.

The runtime currently guarantees at least three candidates where available and caps the configured limit at 15.

Import API

Enable the import API

Configuration key

api_enabled

Default

Enabled.

Controls access to:

history_api_import.php

When disabled, the API returns:

HTTP 503

to callers before processing an import.

This can be used as an application-level emergency stop for external ingestion.

Require HTTPS

Configuration key

api_require_https

Default

Enabled.

Rejects API requests that do not arrive over HTTPS.

The API recognises TLS using:

Requests received without HTTPS while this setting is enabled return an error.

This setting should remain enabled for any environment carrying real clinical records.

Auto-commit by default

Configuration key

api_default_auto_commit

Default

Enabled.

Controls what happens when an API caller does not explicitly supply an auto_commit value.

When enabled, an imported document automatically proceeds to the audit and auto-commit stage after extraction.

A caller may explicitly override the default.

If auto-commit is requested, the caller's API token must have the:

commit

scope.

Maximum document size

Configuration key

api_max_upload_mb

Default

2 MB

Allowed range

1 to 64 MB

Sets the maximum size of a document accepted by the import API.

Uploads larger than the configured value are rejected with:

HTTP 413

This value is also exposed to the LLM limits structure as the application upload limit.

Ingest queue

Queue settings are shown only when the ingest_queue table exists.

When the queue is enabled, API imports are inserted into the queue instead of immediately spawning an independent worker for every request.

The queue provides:

queue_worker.php must be running or scheduled for queued documents to be processed.

Route submissions through the queue

Configuration key

queue_enabled

Default

Enabled.

When enabled, new API imports are submitted to ingest_queue.

When disabled, API submission falls back to spawning an individual worker for each request.

Queue workers also check this setting before claiming work. If disabled, a daemon worker remains alive but does not claim queued documents.

Attempts before parking as failed

Configuration key

queue_max_attempts

Default

3

Allowed range

1 to 10

Controls how many processing attempts a newly queued item receives before being permanently marked:

failed

Each claim increments the item's attempt counter.

Failures that still have attempts remaining are automatically returned to the queue.

Retry delay uses quadratic backoff:

attempt 1:  60 seconds
attempt 2: 240 seconds
attempt 3: 540 seconds
...

with a maximum delay of one hour.

The configured value is copied into each queue item's max_attempts field when it is created.

Changing the configuration therefore primarily affects subsequently queued work.

Extraction timeout

Configuration key

queue_job_timeout

Default

2700 seconds

or:

45 minutes

Allowed range

60 to 21600 seconds

Defines the maximum processing time allowed for an extraction job managed by the queue worker.

A job running beyond this period is considered timed out and enters the queue failure/retry process.

Claim lease

Configuration key

queue_lease_seconds

Default

3600 seconds

or:

60 minutes

Allowed range

60 to 21600 seconds

Controls how long a queue item remains claimed by a worker.

When a worker claims an item, a lease expiry timestamp is stored.

If a worker crashes or disappears without completing the item, an expired lease allows another worker to return the item to the queue.

The lease should normally be comfortably longer than the extraction timeout.

With the defaults:

Job timeout: 2700 seconds / 45 minutes
Lease:       3600 seconds / 60 minutes

This gives a 15-minute safety margin.

API token management

admin_config.php also provides API bearer-token management.

These values are stored in api_token, not app_config.

Token format

New tokens have the form:

och_<48 hexadecimal characters>

For example:

och_0123456789abcdef...

The complete plaintext token is displayed only once immediately after creation.

Only its SHA-256 hash is stored in the database.

The first 12 characters are stored separately as a token prefix so administrators can identify tokens without exposing the credential.

Token label

Maximum length

120 characters

A human-readable name identifying the system using the token.

PMS nightly feed
Hospital integration
Test import client

Tokens should be named for the calling system rather than an individual user.

Token expiry

The administration screen accepts an expiry period in days.

0 = does not expire

The UI permits values between:

0 and 3650 days

An expired token can no longer authenticate API requests.

Token scopes

Three scopes are currently supported.

import

Allows the caller to submit documents for clinical extraction.

status

Allows the caller to retrieve job, document and processing status.

commit

Allows the caller to initiate the audit/auto-commit process.

A token should ideally receive only the scopes required by its integration.

Revoking a token

Revoking a token:

Revocation should normally be preferred when retiring a credential.

Deleting a token

Deleting permanently removes the token row from the database.

This also removes its direct token audit record.

Use deletion primarily for incorrectly created or unnecessary credentials. Use revocation when the history of the credential should be retained.

Security considerations

Gemini credential

The Gemini API key is stored in app_config because the application must recover the plaintext credential to call Gemini.

Access to the database and configuration administration interface should therefore be appropriately restricted.

Open Clinical History API tokens

OCH API tokens use a different security model.

The plaintext token is:

  1. generated using cryptographically secure random bytes
  2. displayed once
  3. hashed using SHA-256
  4. stored only as a hash

The original token cannot subsequently be recovered from the application database.

HTTPS

api_require_https should remain enabled outside explicitly isolated development environments.

Clinical documents, authentication credentials and patient metadata must not be transmitted over an unencrypted connection.

Effective runtime limits

Several advanced settings currently have different administration-page ranges and runtime ranges.

Setting Admin range Effective runtime
Source segment characters 500–100,000 1,200–5,000
Extraction segments per batch 1–100 1–10
Transient retries 0–10 0–3
Retry delay 0–300 sec 1–30 sec
Grounded candidate limit 1–100 4–20
Grounded search terms/event 1–20 1–8
Repair rounds 0–10 0–3
Repair candidate limit 1–100 4–20
Repair search terms/event 1–20 1–8
Repair maximum terms 1–20 2–8
Body selection batch size 1–100 1–16
Body candidate limit 1–100 3–15

Grounded batch characters and Repair batch characters are additionally constrained dynamically by llm_max_chars_per_request.

Current implementation notes

Provider is currently fixed to Gemini

Although llm_provider exists as a configuration setting, admin_config.php currently saves:

gemini

every time settings are saved.

The UI does not currently support selecting another provider.

Empty token scope selection

There is a current implementation inconsistency in token creation.

The token store correctly rejects a token with no scopes, but admin_config.php currently converts an empty scope selection into:

ApiTokenStore::ALL_SCOPES

before calling the token store.

As a result, manually unticking all three scopes currently creates a token with all scopes, rather than rejecting the request.

This should be corrected because it violates least-privilege expectations.

Some advanced UI ranges do not match runtime behaviour

The administration form permits values that are later clamped by the processing pipeline.

The UI should eventually be changed to reflect the actual effective limits documented above.

Legacy configuration message

The legacy document chunker still contains an error message instructing the administrator to:

Raise the limit in config.php

The setting has moved to app_config and should instead direct the administrator to:

Admin → Configuration

Related components

Component Responsibility
admin_config.php Configuration administration UI
lib/app_config.php Configuration persistence, defaults and access
lib/llm.php Gemini provider and LLM budget enforcement
lib/history.php SNOMED grounding, repair and body-layer processing
lib/history/ingest/HistorySegmentationService.php Source segmentation
lib/history/extract/HistoryExtractionService.php Extraction batching
lib/history/support/HistoryPipelineAiService.php LLM retry handling
lib/api_token.php API token creation, validation and revocation
lib/ingest_queue.php Ingest work queue
queue_worker.php Queue execution
history_api_import.php External import API
snomed_import.php SNOMED import interface
snomed_job.php SNOMED import worker

Configuration defaults summary

Configuration key Default
date_format dd/mm/yyyy
snomed_release_path blank / automatic
llm_enabled enabled
llm_provider gemini
llm_gemini_api_key blank
llm_gemini_model gemini-3.5-flash-lite
llm_gemini_timeout_seconds 120
llm_daily_request_cap 4000
llm_daily_token_cap 4000000
llm_max_output_tokens 4096
llm_max_chars_per_request 24000
llm_max_chars_per_chunk 4500
llm_max_chunks_per_document 40
llm_max_chars_per_source_segment 2800
llm_max_chars_per_extraction_batch 6500
llm_max_segments_per_extraction_batch 6
llm_transient_retries 1
llm_transient_retry_delay_seconds 4
llm_enable_snomed_ai_repair disabled
llm_grounded_batch_chars 18000
llm_grounded_candidate_limit 12
llm_grounded_search_terms_per_event 5
llm_grounded_repair_rounds 2
llm_grounded_repair_candidate_limit 15
llm_grounded_repair_search_terms_per_event 6
llm_grounded_critic_enabled enabled
llm_grounded_critic_min_confidence 0.85
llm_grounded_repair_max_terms 6
llm_grounded_repair_batch_chars 15000
llm_grounded_resolution_min_confidence 0.72
llm_body_selection_batch_size 8
llm_body_candidate_limit 8
api_enabled enabled
api_require_https enabled
api_default_auto_commit enabled
api_max_upload_mb 2
queue_enabled enabled
queue_max_attempts 3
queue_job_timeout 2700 seconds
queue_lease_seconds 3600 seconds
Revision #1
Created 2026-08-25 09:25:16 UTC by Admin
Updated 2026-08-25 09:25:35 UTC by Admin