LedgerDock is a private document workspace you can run on your own computer or server. It helps teams collect files, process text from documents, and find information quickly with search.

What LedgerDock Is For

Upload files and folders from one place
Keep documents organized and searchable
Extract text from scans and images (OCR)
Download originals or extracted text

Before You Start

You need:

Docker Desktop (Windows or macOS) or Docker Engine + Docker Compose (Linux)
A terminal app
The project folder on your machine
Internet access the first time you build containers

Install With Docker Compose

Follow these steps from the project folder (where docker-compose.yml is located).

Create your local settings file from the template.

cp .env.example .env

Open .env in a text editor and set your own passwords and keys.
Start LedgerDock.

docker compose up --build -d

Wait until startup is complete, then open the app:

LedgerDock web app: http://localhost:5173
Health check: http://localhost:8000/api/v1/health

`.env` Settings Explained In Plain Language

LedgerDock reads settings from .env. Some values are required and some are optional.

Required: Change These Before First Use

POSTGRES_PASSWORD: Password for the internal database.
REDIS_PASSWORD: Password for the internal queue service.
AUTH_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD: First admin login password.
APP_SETTINGS_ENCRYPTION_KEY: Secret used to protect saved app settings.
TYPESENSE_API_KEY: Secret key for the search engine.

Use long, unique values for each one. Do not reuse personal passwords.

Required: Usually Keep Defaults Unless You Know You Need Changes

POSTGRES_USER: Database username.
POSTGRES_DB: Database name.
DATABASE_URL: Connection string to the database service.
REDIS_URL: Connection string to the Redis service.
AUTH_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_USERNAME: First admin username (default admin).

If you change passwords, make sure matching URLs use the same new password.

Optional User Account (Can Be Left Empty)

AUTH_BOOTSTRAP_USER_USERNAME
AUTH_BOOTSTRAP_USER_PASSWORD

These create an extra non-admin account on first startup.

Network and Access Settings

HOST_BIND_IP: Where services listen. Keep 127.0.0.1 for local-only access.
PUBLIC_BASE_URL: Backend base URL. Local default is http://localhost:8000.
CORS_ORIGINS: Allowed frontend origins. Keep local defaults for single-machine use.
VITE_API_BASE: Frontend API URL override. Leave empty unless you know you need it.

Environment Mode

APP_ENV=development: Local mode (default).
APP_ENV=production: Use when running as a real shared deployment with HTTPS and tighter security settings.
- Frontend runtime switches to a static build served by Nginx in this mode.

Daily Use Commands

Start or rebuild:

docker compose up --build -d

Stop:

docker compose down

View logs:

docker compose logs -f

View backend logs only:

docker compose logs -f api worker

Where Your Data Is Stored

LedgerDock stores data in Docker volumes so it survives container restarts:

db-data for PostgreSQL data
redis-data for Redis data
dcm-storage for uploaded files and app storage
typesense-data for the search index

If you switch to host bind mounts (for example under ./data/), create those directories and grant write access to container runtime user uid=10001 for backend storage paths.

To remove everything, including data:

docker compose down -v

Warning: this permanently deletes your LedgerDock data on this machine.

First Checks After Install

Open http://localhost:5173 and confirm the login page appears.
Open http://localhost:8000/api/v1/health and confirm you get {"status":"ok"}.
Upload one sample file and confirm it appears in search.

Need Technical Documentation?

Developer and operator docs are in doc/, starting at doc/README.md.

README.md

LedgerDock