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How to configure the Doorman gateway

The Doorman gateway routes all inference and entity-lookup requests to the appropriate tier: Tier A (DataGraph), Tier B (local SLM), or Tier C (local fallback). Configuring Doorman means setting the upstream addresses for each tier, defining circuit-breaker thresholds, and verifying the health endpoint after startup. This guide covers a single-instance Doorman deployment.

For the Doorman protocol and circuit-breaker model, see doorman-protocol. For starting the SLM model that Tier B depends on, see run-local-slm-inference.

Prerequisites

The slm-doorman-server binary available on the deployment host
Network access to the DataGraph endpoint (service-content) if Tier A is intended
The OLMo model binary present at the configured path for Tier B
A terminal session on the host where Doorman will run

Step 1: Create the Doorman configuration file

Doorman reads its configuration from a TOML file. Create doorman.toml:

[server]
port = 9080
bind = "127.0.0.1"

[tier_a]
enabled = true
service_content_url = "http://127.0.0.1:9090"
circuit_breaker_threshold = 5
circuit_breaker_timeout_secs = 30

[tier_b]
enabled = true
model_path = "/opt/pointsav/models/olmoe-1b-7b-instruct.gguf"
context_window = 4096
max_tokens = 512

[tier_c]
enabled = true
fallback_message = "Inference unavailable — local fallback only"

Adjust service_content_url to match the DataGraph service address in your deployment. If the DataGraph is on the same host, 127.0.0.1:9090 is typical. If it is on a separate node, use its network address.

Step 2: Start the Doorman service

Start the service with the configuration file:

slm-doorman-server --config doorman.toml

Or as a systemd service:

sudo systemctl start slm-doorman-server

Doorman logs its startup sequence: it attempts to contact the DataGraph (Tier A), loads the SLM model (Tier B), and confirms Tier C is always available. Any failure to contact Tier A at startup does not prevent Doorman from starting — it marks Tier A's circuit as OPEN and routes to Tier B instead.

Step 3: Verify the health endpoint

Doorman exposes a health endpoint at /health:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/health

A healthy response:

{
  "tier_a_state": "CLOSED",
  "tier_b_state": "CLOSED",
  "tier_c_state": "AVAILABLE",
  "active_tier": "A"
}

CLOSED means the circuit is healthy and routing requests. OPEN means the circuit has tripped and Doorman is not routing to that tier. active_tier shows which tier is currently receiving requests.

Step 4: Verify from the console

Open the console and press F9 to view the Doorman health dashboard. The dashboard reads from the same /health endpoint. Tier A, B, and C should show green under normal operation.

If Tier A shows OPEN but the DataGraph service is running, check the service_content_url in the configuration. A DNS resolution failure or wrong port is the most common cause.

Step 5: Adjust circuit-breaker thresholds (optional)

The circuit_breaker_threshold in [tier_a] sets how many consecutive failures trigger the circuit. A lower threshold (e.g., 3) makes the circuit trip faster under transient failures; a higher threshold (e.g., 10) tolerates more errors before falling back. The default of 5 is appropriate for most deployments.

After changing the threshold, restart Doorman for the change to take effect:

sudo systemctl restart slm-doorman-server

Key takeaways

Doorman starts regardless of whether Tier A (DataGraph) is reachable — it marks unavailable tiers as OPEN and routes to the next
The /health endpoint is the authoritative source of circuit state — read it directly or via F9 in the console
Circuit-breaker settings are in doorman.toml under [tier_a]; changes require a service restart
Tier C is always available; it never trips

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