Self-hosting

The self-host bundle is a single Docker image that contains the API and the dashboard. The API serves the dashboard assets on the same origin, so there is only one container to run and no CORS configuration to manage.

Image: ghcr.io/ferrlabs/ferrflow-selfhost:latest

Prerequisites

• Docker 24+ and Docker Compose
• A PostgreSQL 16 database with the TimescaleDB extension (the reference compose file below provisions one for you)

Quickstart with Docker Compose

Download the reference compose file and environment template from the Application repository:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FerrLabs/Application/main/docker-compose.selfhost.yml
curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FerrLabs/Application/main/.env.example.selfhost

Generate secrets and edit .env:

# Database password (any long random string)
echo "DB_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env.secrets
# JWT signing secret
echo "JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 64)" >> .env.secrets
# AES-256-GCM key for encrypting secrets at rest (must be base64-encoded 32 bytes)
echo "ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env.secrets
# HMAC secret used by the FerrFlow CLI telemetry endpoint
echo "FERRFLOW_HMAC_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" >> .env.secrets

Merge .env.secrets into .env manually, then start the stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml up -d

The dashboard is now available on http://localhost:3000.

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	yes	Postgres connection string
JWT_SECRET	yes	Signing key for session JWTs
ENCRYPTION_KEY	yes	32-byte base64 key for the secrets at-rest encryption
FERRFLOW_HMAC_SECRET	yes	HMAC key for CLI telemetry ingestion
SERVER_HOST	no (default 0.0.0.0)	Bind address
SERVER_PORT	no (default 3000)	Bind port
DATABASE_MAX_CONNECTIONS	no (default 10)	Postgres pool size
RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS	no (default 60)	Requests per minute before rate-limiting
RUST_LOG	no (default info)	Log level
FERRFLOW_DISABLE_AUTO_ADMIN	no (default unset)	Set to false to opt into env-driven admin bootstrap
FERRFLOW_ADMIN_EMAIL	conditional	Email for the bootstrap staff user (required when opting in)
FERRFLOW_ADMIN_PASSWORD	conditional	Password for the bootstrap staff user (8–128 chars)

Bootstrap admin

On first boot, self-hosters usually need a staff user and an organization to log in to. Instead of running SQL by hand you can provision one from the environment.

Opt in explicitly by setting:

FERRFLOW_DISABLE_AUTO_ADMIN=false
FERRFLOW_ADMIN_EMAIL=you@example.com
FERRFLOW_ADMIN_PASSWORD=a-long-random-password

On startup (after migrations, before the HTTP server binds) the API will:

1. Create a user with is_staff=true and email_verified=true.
2. Create a personal organization owned by that user.
3. Log a single info line containing the email (never the password).

Rules:

• Both FERRFLOW_ADMIN_EMAIL and FERRFLOW_ADMIN_PASSWORD must be set, or neither. Setting only one aborts boot with a clear error.
• If a staff user already exists, bootstrap is a no-op.
• Any value other than the exact string false on FERRFLOW_DISABLE_AUTO_ADMIN (including unset) is treated as disabled. That keeps hosted deployments safe from accidental enablement.

Once bootstrap has run, unset the three variables — the API doesn’t need them again, and leaving the password in the environment is needless exposure.

Using an external Postgres

Remove the db service and the depends_on block from the compose file, then point DATABASE_URL at your existing instance. The TimescaleDB extension is required — create it once with:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS timescaledb;

Migrations run automatically on startup.

Reverse proxy and TLS

Terminate TLS at a proxy in front of the container. Example Caddyfile:

ferrflow.example.com {
  reverse_proxy localhost:3000
}

No CORS origins need to be whitelisted because the browser only talks to the single proxy origin.

Updating

docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml up -d

Database migrations are applied on startup. Take a database backup before upgrading across a major version.

Health check

GET /health returns 200 once the API has connected to Postgres and applied migrations.