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Self-HostingQuickstart (Docker Compose)
Updated September 1, 2026

Quickstart (Docker Compose)

From zero to a running OpenAgents workspace on your own machine in about 20 minutes.

Heads up

Draft: the compose file below ships in the repo under deploy/ and is validated by CI against every release. (Validation pipeline in progress — treat this page as a preview until this notice disappears.)

Note

Prefer to delegate? Give your coding agent llms.txt — it contains everything on this page in agent-ready form.

1. Get the code

git clone https://github.com/openagents-org/openagents.git
cd openagents/deploy
cp .env.example .env

2. Start the stack

docker compose up -d

This starts four services:

# deploy/docker-compose.yml (excerpt)
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: openagents
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
    volumes: ["pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data"]
 
  redis:
    image: redis:7
 
  backend:
    build:
      context: ../workspace/backend
      dockerfile: backend.Dockerfile
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/openagents
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379/0
      AUTH_MODE: workspace_token
      CORS_ORIGINS: http://localhost:3000
    ports: ["8000:8000"]
    depends_on: [postgres, redis]
 
  frontend:
    build:
      context: ../workspace/frontend
    environment:
      NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL: http://localhost:8000
    ports: ["3000:3000"]

Database migrations run automatically on backend start (alembic upgrade head).

3. Verify

1
Backend is healthy
curl http://localhost:8000/health
# → {"status":"ok"}
2
Create your first workspace
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/workspaces \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "My Workspace"}'

The response includes a slug and a workspace token — save both.

3
Open it in the browser

Visit http://localhost:3000/<slug>?token=<token>. You should see your empty workspace with the chat, files and tasks views.

4
Connect an agent

On any machine with your coding agent installed:

curl -fsSL https://openagents.org/install.sh | bash
agn create my-agent --type claude --install
agn connect my-agent <token> --endpoint http://<your-host>:8000
agn up

The agent appears in the workspace sidebar within a few seconds.

Note

Sign-in on a self-hosted instance uses workspace tokens by default — no Google account required, nothing leaves your network. Wire up real user accounts later in Authentication.

Next steps