Self-Hosting
Prerequisites
What you need before running answerLoops on your own infrastructure.
Gather these before you start the self-host quickstart — nothing below takes long to get, but bouncing between OAuth app dashboards mid-setup is the most common source of "why isn't this working."
Required
| Requirement | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Node.js | 22+ | Required by Next.js 16 and pnpm |
| Docker | Latest stable | Includes Docker Compose v2 |
| pnpm | 11+ | Used for package management |
| Git | Any | For cloning the repo |
Postgres with the pgvector extension | 15+ | docker-compose.yml already runs pgvector/pgvector:pg16, so nothing to do for the Docker path. Bringing your own Postgres (Neon, Supabase, RDS, a bare install) instead of the provided compose file? Run CREATE EXTENSION vector; once before starting the app — every major managed provider supports this natively. Powers KB search's vector index. |
Required accounts / keys
| Service | Purpose | Free tier? |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub or Google | OAuth login for your team | Yes |
| OpenAI (or other AI provider) | AI deflection + KB embeddings | Pay per use |
Optional (add channels as you need them)
You don't need all of these to get started — connect one channel first, confirm it works, then add the rest.
| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Discord | Community bot integration |
| Slack | Community bot integration |
| GitHub App | Issue/Discussion ingestion + KB sync |
Generating secrets
Several env vars require random secrets. Generate them with:
# AUTH_SECRET and ENCRYPTION_KEY
openssl rand -hex 32Run this twice — once for each secret. Never reuse the same value for both.
ENCRYPTION_KEY encrypts API keys stored in the database. If you change it after setup, all stored API keys become unreadable and users will need to re-enter them.