Docker Compose install

This is the single-host Docker Compose install. It runs the API server, one lean worker, Postgres with pgvector, Redis, MinIO, and Temporal. Postgres and MinIO use named Docker volumes. Only the server binds a host port, on localhost by default. This setup is suitable for a small private installation or a server behind a TLS reverse proxy; it is not a multi-host or high-availability design.

Every command on this page runs from the repository root.

Requirements

• A Linux host with Docker Engine and Compose v2. Docker Desktop is untested. You need enough disk for document artifacts and images.
• At least 8 GB of RAM for the lean worker; the optional full worker needs more memory and disk for OCR, LibreOffice, and Python models. See sizing for what has and has not been measured.
• A recent Node.js installation for the one-time configuration generator. Node is not needed to run the containers after setup.

Start

From a clean checkout:

node scripts/selfhost-init.mjs
node scripts/selfhost-check.mjs
docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml up -d --build
node scripts/selfhost-check.mjs --running

The server takes about 15 seconds to start. Wait until ps shows it as healthy, then run the --running check. Run early, it fails with Server health check failed: fetch failed.

Check http://localhost:8787/health. There is no bundled web UI: use the REST API, CLI, SDK or MCP. The first build and first worker start can take several minutes. No seeded developer accounts are created in this production-mode stack. API routes are available under /v1.

The generated .env.selfhost contains distinct random values for database, storage, auth, encryption, and metrics. It is ignored by Git. Store a secure backup of it: changing encryption keys later can make stored credentials and secrets unreadable. The template lists every first-run option; see Configuration for what each one does.

The worker containers run with systempaths=unconfined so the parser sandbox (bubblewrap) can mount a fresh /proc; all capabilities remain dropped and the seccomp profile still applies. Without it the worker reports parser isolation unavailable and refuses to start. See Parser sandbox.

To view status or logs:

docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml ps --all
docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml logs -f server worker

Switch to the full worker

The default lean worker handles text-centric documents. For scans, images, spreadsheets, and heavier extraction, switch to the full worker:

docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml --profile full up -d --build --scale worker=0

This switches the queue consumer to the full worker. It needs more resources. Both workers bake the base Python parsers (the Office/EPUB/HTML readers; PDFs go through Kreuzberg and Poppler). Docling and Unstructured come from prebuilt vendor bundles when DOCSLURP_VENDOR_BUNDLE_BASE_URL is set: an https:// mirror or a file:///path directory of bundle archives, verified against the sha256 pins in worker/vendor-bundles.json. The bucket DocSlurp’s own workers read is private, so build the bundles yourself and serve them from your own mirror. Without a bundle source, the full worker falls back to pip-installing them on first boot (several GB; set DOCSLURP_WORKER_INSTALL_HEAVY_DEPS_ON_STARTUP=false to skip that). Watch its logs before submitting heavy files. See Worker image and vendor bundles for sizes, flags and building bundles yourself. To switch back, run the original up -d command, then stop worker-full:

docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml --profile full stop worker-full

Stop

Stop containers without deleting the named volumes:

docker compose --env-file .env.selfhost -f compose.selfhost.yml down

Do not add --volumes unless you intend to remove the stored database and artifacts.