import tornado.ioloop import tornado.web from tornado.options import define, options define("your_var", default="defined var") # http://www.tornadoweb.org/en/stable/options.html?highlight=options#tornado.options.options options.parse_command_line() # or #tornado.options.parse_config_file("/etc/server.conf") class MainHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler): def get(self): self.write("Hello, world " + options.your_var) def make_app(): return tornado.web.Application([ (r"/", MainHandler), ]) if __name__ == "__main__": app = make_app() app.listen(8888) tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.current().start()