Trilium using docker-compose.yml - Sample Data loads

[danfoxley]

Hello,
Please, hoping for some guidance.

Using Trilium Github docker-compose.yml, I see the resulting instance (running on port 8080) is loading sample data.

What is the suggested way to get a clean instance of Trilium running with docker-compose.yml, as proivded by the project, without sample data loaded?

Following this screenshot, even after deleting created data, puts back sample data. I'd prefer to use the default docker-compose.yml, to keep in sync with what github will have in the future.

(Screenshot) I thought this would offer a blank instance of Trilium to load

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @danfoxley! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the Trilium team.

Trilium always loads sample/demo data on first run or after deleting the data directory—this is intentional and meant to help new users get started. There’s currently no built-in option, environment variable, or flag in the default docker-compose.yml to disable sample data loading, and deleting the data directory will simply trigger the demo import again on startup. If you want a completely blank instance, the only supported method is to manually delete the sample/demo notes after initial setup. Any code-level workaround would require maintaining a custom fork, which isn’t supported by the default compose file or upstream updates. More details are discussed in this issue thread.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

---

^{How did I do? Good | Irrelevant | Incorrect | Verbose | Hallucination | Report 🐛 | Other}

   

[danfoxley]

Thanks. I did search, but in discussions - not Issues! I'm glad to know I'm not missing anything and this was a "feature" of Trilium. I will manually delete "demo" (not sample) data.

[eliandoran]

There is a feature request to add an option not to import the sample data when creating a new database that we plan to implement.