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Docker Compose setup

Step-by-step bring-up of the Observal stack. End state: the core services are healthy, API responding at http://localhost/health, web UI at http://localhost. Prometheus and Grafana are optional.

1. Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/Observal/Observal.git
cd Observal
cp .env.example .env

The .env.example ships with working direct-value defaults for local source development, including demo account credentials. You do not need to edit it for local development. Production server-package installs use generated files under secrets/ instead; see Configuration.

Note

You need Docker Engine ≥ 24.0 with Compose v2 (docker compose, not docker-compose). Homebrew's Docker formula is outdated. Install Docker Desktop or use your distro's upstream packages. Verify with docker version and docker compose version.

2. Start the stack

Core stack only:

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up --build -d

With Prometheus only:

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml -f docker/docker-compose.observability.yml up --build -d

With Prometheus and Grafana:

COMPOSE_PROFILES=grafana docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml -f docker/docker-compose.observability.yml up --build -d

First build takes a few minutes (pulls images, builds observal-api and observal-web). Subsequent starts are fast.

3. Verify health

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml ps

Every service should show healthy or running. The API waits for Postgres, ClickHouse, and Redis to pass health checks before starting. Expect 15–30 seconds on first boot.

Hit the health endpoint:

curl http://localhost/health
# {"status":"ok"}

4. Configure TLS (production only)

For local dev, http://localhost is fine. For production, put a TLS-terminating reverse proxy in front of the nginx LB. See Requirements → TLS / HTTPS.

5. Bootstrap the first user

Option A - demo accounts (fastest for trying it out)

.env.example seeds four demo accounts on first startup:

Role Email Password
Super Admin super@demo.example super-changeme
Admin admin@demo.example admin-changeme
Reviewer reviewer@demo.example reviewer-changeme
User user@demo.example user-changeme

Log in with the CLI:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Observal/Observal/main/install.sh | bash   # if you haven't already
observal auth login              # Email: super@demo.example, Password: super-changeme

Remove demo accounts before real deployment. Unset the DEMO_* env vars in .env and restart. Already-seeded accounts stay until you delete them manually (observal admin delete-user <email>).

Option B - fresh bootstrap (recommended for production)

Remove DEMO_* from .env and start the stack. Run:

observal auth login
# Server URL: http://localhost
# No users detected - bootstrapping admin account.
# Email: alice@your-company.com
# Password: **************

The CLI detects that no users exist and interactively creates the first admin. The /api/v1/auth/bootstrap endpoint is restricted to localhost access for security.

6. Verify with the CLI

observal auth whoami
observal auth status

observal registry mcp list         # empty list - you haven't added anything yet

7. Stop, restart, rebuild

# Stop core and any optional monitoring containers
make down

# Stop and delete all data, including optional monitoring volumes
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml -f docker/docker-compose.observability.yml --profile grafana down -v

# Restart one service
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml restart observal-api

# Rebuild after code changes
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up --build -d observal-api

Makefile shortcuts from the repo root:

make logs                  # tail core service logs
make rebuild               # rebuild and restart core services
make up-prometheus         # start core services with Prometheus
make up-observability      # start core services with Prometheus and Grafana
make rebuild-prometheus    # rebuild core services with Prometheus
make rebuild-observability # rebuild core services with Prometheus and Grafana

8. Logs

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f                # all
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f observal-api   # one service

9. Port conflicts

If docker compose up fails with port is already allocated, remap host ports via env vars:

POSTGRES_HOST_PORT=5433 REDIS_HOST_PORT=6380 \
  docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up --build -d

Every host port is configurable. See Ports and volumes for the full list.

Next

→ Configuration: which env vars to change for production.