Self-hosting

Run DrFed on your own server to keep your debugging workspace on your own infrastructure. See the CLI reference for backend configuration options.

Create an account

Use drfed-account create with the same database settings as your server. Stop a running PGlite server first: only one process can own its data directory at a time.

drfed-account create --data-path .pgdata \
  --email alice@example.com --name "Alice"

Replace the email address and display name with your own. The command prepares a fresh database automatically. An existing account with the same normalized email is returned without changing its name or privileges. Newly created accounts are not administrators.

In the official container image, run the command through the server's Compose service, as described for Docker and Podman, or as a container with the server's volume and settings, as described for other container tools.

For a configured deployment, use the same TOML file:

drfed-account create --config drfed.toml \
  --email alice@example.com --name "Alice"

PostgreSQL deployments can instead pass --database-url postgres://drfed@localhost/drfed. The command prints JSON with a created or exists status; both outcomes exit successfully.

When running from the repository, build first and invoke the same command through its binary:

mise exec -- node packages/drfed/bin/drfed-account.mjs create \
  --data-path .pgdata --email alice@example.com --name "Alice"

Start the server, open its configured public origin, and sign in with that email address. Follow the login link delivered by your mail transport. For local testing with log-only mail, explicitly enable --mail-log-content to print login links; their contents are excluded by default.

See Configuration for shared settings and mail setup.

Prepare and check the database

drfed-migrate prepares the database without starting the server. If DrFed uses PGlite, stop the DrFed server before running either command, because it holds exclusive access to the database directory:

drfed-migrate --config drfed.toml
drfed-migrate --config drfed.toml --check

--check inspects migration history without applying DrFed migrations. It exits successfully only when the database matches the installed migrations with no pending changes. Before upgrading, back up your database and stop DrFed. Keep old server processes stopped while applying the new migrations, then run drfed-migrate --config drfed.toml --check before restarting DrFed.

From the repository, invoke packages/drfed/bin/drfed-migrate.mjs through mise exec -- node after building.