@Marvin I enabled basic auth on the server. I configured this through prefect.yaml.

[server.api]
auth_string="foo:bar"

How can I configure the worker with the same basic auth? I prefer to specify via a file over environment variables.

✅ thought for 388.2 seconds

short answer:

prefect.toml

wherever you do

prefect worker start

otherwise people commonly like to use

prefect config set PREFECT_{something}={value}

to set settings for a whole profile (applied whenever using the CLI/SDK and that profile is active)

You’ll want to set the client-side auth string the worker uses to talk to the API. In Prefect 3.x, that’s the

PREFECT_API_AUTH_STRING

setting (format:

user:pass

). You can do this purely via files in two common ways: Option A — Profiles (global, file-backed) - This writes to

~/.prefect/profiles.toml

(no env vars needed):

prefect profile create local-auth
prefect --profile local-auth config set PREFECT_API_URL="<http://127.0.0.1:4200/api>" PREFECT_API_AUTH_STRING="foo:bar"
prefect profile use local-auth
prefect worker start -p <your-pool>

- Or edit the file directly:

# ~/.prefect/profiles.toml
[profiles]
active = "local-auth"

[profiles.local-auth]
PREFECT_API_URL = "<http://127.0.0.1:4200/api>"
PREFECT_API_AUTH_STRING = "foo:bar"

Then start your worker with that profile active:

prefect --profile local-auth worker start -p <your-pool>

Option B — Project-level TOML file - In a

prefect.toml

at your project root:

[prefect.api]
url = "<http://127.0.0.1:4200/api>"
auth_string = "foo:bar"

- Or in `pyproject.toml`:

[tool.prefect.api]
url = "<http://127.0.0.1:4200/api>"
auth_string = "foo:bar"

Start the worker from that directory (or ensure the file is present in the worker’s filesystem). Notes: - If both

PREFECT_API_KEY

and

PREFECT_API_AUTH_STRING

are set, the API key takes precedence. - For containerized workers, bake

~/.prefect/profiles.toml

into the image or mount it, or include a `prefect.toml`/`pyproject.toml` in the working directory. Docs for reference: - Security settings (basic auth) - Settings and profiles