Installation

Install Dequel on your own infrastructure.

You install Dequel with one command. The installer sets up the control plane (dashboard, API, builders, databases engine, and monitoring) as Docker containers on your machine. Your apps can run on that same machine, or on additional servers you connect later (see Servers).

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose v2 (docker compose)
• A Linux server with ports 80 and 443 reachable if you want public HTTPS URLs (not needed for local-only use)

Install

Run the install script:

curl -fsSL https://dequel.intrep.xyz/install.sh | bash

Alternatively, download directly from the latest GitHub release:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/Lftobs/dequel/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

The script checks for Docker and Compose, creates a config directory at ~/.dequel, generates a unique ENV_ENCRYPTION_KEY, downloads the docker-compose.yml and monitoring configs, pulls the pre-built images from GitHub Container Registry, installs the dequel CLI, and asks for an optional admin email (Let’s Encrypt notifications) and base domain (public app URLs).

Then start the platform:

dequel start

Open https://<the base domain added while installing> to access the dashboard. If you configured a base domain during install, the dashboard is also served on it.

Create your login user

Dequel authenticates against Linux system users in the dequel group. Create the group and a user after installing:

sudo groupadd -f dequel
sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash <username>
sudo passwd <username>
sudo usermod -aG dequel <username>

Sign in with that username and password. See Authentication for sessions, API keys, and programmatic access.

Production setup

To serve public HTTPS traffic:

1. Set the base domain and contact email in ~/.dequel/.env (the installer already wrote these if you provided them):

   CADDY_BASE_DOMAIN=example.com
   CADDY_EMAIL=[email protected]

2. Point a wildcard DNS record (*.example.com) at your server’s IP.
3. Ensure ports 80 and 443 are open in your firewall.
4. Restart with dequel restart.

Deployed apps become reachable at https://<project-slug>.example.com with automatic Let’s Encrypt certificates.

Configuration directory

Dequel stores its state in ~/.dequel (override with DEQUEL_HOME):

~/.dequel/
├── docker-compose.yml
├── .env                    # CADDY_BASE_DOMAIN, CADDY_EMAIL, ENV_ENCRYPTION_KEY
├── data/
│   ├── dequel.json         # File-based platform config (0600)
│   └── ...                 # Postgres data, backups, instance id
├── workspace/              # Build staging area
├── scripts/auth/           # PAM auth server files
└── infra/
    ├── caddy/
    │   ├── Caddyfile
    │   └── routes/         # Generated per-project route files
    └── monitoring/         # Prometheus, Loki, Grafana configs

PostgreSQL holds all platform state (projects, deployments, env vars, databases, users). It runs as the postgres container with a persisted volume — there is no SQLite file to manage.

The dequel CLI

The CLI manages the platform lifecycle. See the full CLI reference for update channels and backups.

Manual setup

If the installer does not fit your environment, replicate what it does: create the directory layout above, download docker-compose.yml and the infra/ configs from the latest GitHub release, write your .env with CADDY_BASE_DOMAIN, CADDY_EMAIL, and a generated ENV_ENCRYPTION_KEY, then run docker compose -f ~/.dequel/docker-compose.yml up -d.

To build from source instead, clone the repository and run docker compose up -d --build. For local development of the API and dashboard directly, see the commands in AGENTS.md.

Updating

dequel update

This pulls the latest images and recreates services with a rolling restart. Pin a version with dequel update vX.Y.Z.

Next steps

• Follow the Quickstart to deploy your first app.
• Connect more machines under Servers.