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Advanced Self-Hosting

The easiest way to self-host Plantic is to use the Local Mode Quickstart. But if you need to run Plantic on a remote server with multiple users or orgs, or you want to run it without docker/docker-compose, keep reading below.

Requirements​

The Plantic server requires a PostgreSQL database (ideally v14), a persistent file system, and git.

Due to a dependency on tree-sitter, gcc, g++, and make are also required to build the server.

Development vs. Production​

The Plantic server can be run in development or production mode. The main differences are how authentication pins and emails are handled, and the default path for the persistent file system.

Development mode is designed for local usage with a single user. Email isn't enabled and verification pins are skipped. In development mode, the default base directory is $HOME/plantic-server.

Production mode is designed for multiple users or organizations. Email is enabled and SMTP environment variables are required. Authentication pins are sent via email. In production mode, the default base directory is /plantic-server.

Development or production mode is set with the GOENV environment variable. It should be set to either development or production.

In both development and production mode, the server runs on port 8099 by default. This can be changed with the PORT environment variable.

PostgreSQL Database​

If you aren't using docker-compose to start the server and run the database, you'll need a PostgreSQL database. You can run the following SQL to create a user and database, replacing user and password with your own values:

CREATE USER 'user' WITH PASSWORD 'password';
CREATE DATABASE 'plantic' OWNER 'user';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE 'plantic' TO 'user';

Environment Variables​

Set GOENV to either development or production as described above in the Development vs. Production section:

export GOENV=development

or

export GOENV=production

You'll also need a DATABASE_URL:

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host:5432/plantic # replace with your own database URL

In production mode, you'll also need to connect to SMTP to send emails. Set the following environment variables:

export SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
export SMTP_PORT=587
export SMTP_USER=user
export SMTP_PASSWORD=password
export SMTP_FROM=user@example.com # optional, if not set then SMTP_USER is used

In either development or production mode, the base directory for the persistent file system can optionally be overridden with the PLANTIC_BASE_DIR environment variable:

export PLANTIC_BASE_DIR=~/some-dir/plantic-server

When running the Plantic CLI, to connect to a server running in production mode, set the API_HOST environment variable to the host the server is running on:

export API_HOST=api.your-domain.ai

Using Docker Build​

The server can be run from a Dockerfile at app/Dockerfile.server:

git clone https://github.com/plantic-ai/plantic.git
VERSION=$(cat app/server/version.txt) # or use the version you want
git checkout server/v$VERSION
cd plantic/app
mkdir ~/plantic-server # or another directory where you want to store files
docker build -t plantic-server -f Dockerfile.server .
docker run -p 8099:8099 \
  -v ~/plantic-server:/plantic-server \
  -e DATABASE_URL \
  -e GOENV \
  -e API_HOST \
  -e SMTP_HOST \ 
  -e SMTP_PORT \
  -e SMTP_USER \
  -e SMTP_PASSWORD \
  plantic-server

The API_HOST and SMTP environment variables above are only required if you're running in production mode.

DockerHub Server Images​

Apart from building manually with the Dockerfile, server images are also built and pushed to DockerHub automatically when a new version of the server is released.

You can pull the latest server image with:

docker pull planticai/plantic-server:latest

Run From Source​

You can also run the server from source:

git clone https://github.com/plantic-ai/plantic.git
cd plantic/
VERSION=$(cat app/server/version.txt) # or use the version you want
git checkout server/v$VERSION
cd app/server
export GOENV=development # or production
export DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host:5432/plantic # replace with your own database URL
export PLANTIC_BASE_DIR=~/plantic-server # or another directory where you want to store files
go run main.go

Health Check​

You can check if the server is running by sending a GET request to /health. If all is well, it will return a 200 status code.

Create a New Account​

Once the server is running and you've installed the Plantic CLI on your local development machine, you can create a new account by running plantic sign-in:

plantic sign-in # follow the prompts to create a new account on your self-hosted server

Note On Local CLI Files​

If you use the Plantic CLI and then for some reason you reset the database or use a new one, you'll need to remove the local files that the CLI creates in directories where you used Plantic in order to start fresh. Otherwise, the CLI will attempt to authenticate with an account that doesn't exist in the new database and you'll get errors.

To resolve this, remove the following in any directory you used the CLI in:

  • .plantic-dev directory if you ran the CLI with PLANTIC_ENV=development
  • .plantic directory otherwise

Then run plantic sign-in again to create a new account.

If you're still having trouble with accounts, you can also remove the following from your $HOME directory to fully reset them:

  • .plantic-home-dev directory if you ran the CLI with PLANTIC_ENV=development
  • .plantic-home directory otherwise