Configuration

Holmes works with no configuration. Every setting below has a default chosen to be safe on a large production site.

Settings live at Holmes → Settings (admins only), and can be overridden in config/holmes.php like any Craft plugin.

Audits

Setting	Default	What it does
`defaultMode`	`quick`	Which mode the new-audit form and the console command start from. `quick` or `deep`.
`deepLimit`	`500`	How many elements a deep audit will load per element type before it stops, newest first. This is the knob that keeps an audit of a 200,000-entry site finite. `0` means no cap.
`batchSize`	`100`	How many elements are loaded at a time during a deep audit or a reindex. Lower it if memory is tight.
`maxIssuesPerCheck`	`500`	Maximum findings recorded per check, per audit. Findings beyond this are counted but not stored — 400,000 identical rows help nobody, and the count is what you act on.
`queueDeepAudits`	`true`	Whether deep audits are pushed to the queue rather than run in the request. On by default: a deep audit loads elements, and web requests time out.
`retentionCount`	`20`	How many finished audits to keep. Older ones, and their findings, are pruned after each run. `0` keeps them all.
`disabledChecks`	`[]`	Check handles that never run. Handy when a site legitimately trips one — a headless install with no titles, say.
`ignoredElementTypes`	`[]`	Element type classes excluded from every audit. Worth using for high-volume types that are not user-searchable.

Search console

Setting	Default	What it does
`probeLimit`	`50`	How many rows the search console returns per query.
`keywordPreviewLength`	`300`	How many characters of a row’s keywords the control panel shows before truncating the display. The full value is always available on the element’s detail screen.

Repairs

Setting	Default	What it does
`queueReindexing`	`true`	Whether reindexing from the control panel is queued rather than run in the request.

Logging

Setting	Default	What it does
`traceIndexWrites`	`false`	Whether every write Craft makes to the search index is recorded in `storage/logs/holmes.log`. Off by default — it is noisy on a busy site — but it is the fastest way to answer “what is rewriting this row?”
`logLevel`	`info`	One of `error`, `warning`, `info`, `debug`.

In a config file

Anything above can be set in config/holmes.php, with the usual Craft multi-environment shape. Settings set here are locked in the control panel.

<?php

return [
    // Deep by default, but bounded.
    'defaultMode' => 'deep',
    'deepLimit' => 2000,

    // Orders are not user-searchable on this site.
    'ignoredElementTypes' => [
        'craft\commerce\elements\Order',
    ],

    // This site's archive entries are deliberately blank.
    'disabledChecks' => ['empty-keywords'],

    'production' => [
        'queueDeepAudits' => true,
        'queueReindexing' => true,
        'retentionCount' => 60,
    ],

    'dev' => [
        'queueDeepAudits' => false,
        'traceIndexWrites' => true,
    ],
];

A note on required settings

None of these are validated as required, deliberately. A required rule fails validation on the whole settings model, which on a fresh install can block saving any setting at all — including the ones you need to set to get out of the situation.

Next: Console commands