Quickstart — Self-Hosted

Run Kaiten locally using Docker Compose with pre-seeded demo data.

Prerequisites

Docker and Docker Compose (v2+)
Git
An Identity Provider account (e.g. Clerk) — see Authentication for alternatives

Setup

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/kaitencloud/kaiten.git
cd kaiten

Configure Environment Variables

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env and fill in the required values:

# Kaiten
KAITEN_PORT=6000

# API — your Identity Provider secret
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_xxxxx

# Database
KAITEN_DATABASE_PORT=5452
KAITEN_DATABASE_USER=kaiten
KAITEN_DATABASE_PASSWORD=kaiten
KAITEN_DATABASE=kaiten

CLERK_SECRET_KEY is required for authentication. See the Clerk Setup Guide for step-by-step instructions on creating a Clerk application and obtaining your secret key.

Launch with Demo Data

Start the stack with the Kaiten Sushi Shop demo profile:

KAITEN_SEED_PROFILE=kaiten-sushi-shop make up

This runs the backend profile which includes:

Traefik — API gateway with JWT validation and routing
PostgreSQL 17 — database with WAL logical replication
Go API — REST + GraphQL server
Seeder — populates the database with demo data

Without demo data, run make up instead. Other profiles:

make up-full — adds MCP server + Jaeger tracing
make up-frontend — adds the local React dashboard dev server

Verify Services

make ps

You should see traefik, kaiten-db, kaiten-api, and kaiten-seeder (completed) running.

Open the Dashboard

Dashboard: http://localhost:6000
API Docs (Scalar): http://localhost:6000/api/docs
OpenAPI Spec: http://localhost:6000/api/openapi.json
Health Check: http://localhost:6000/api/healthz

What's Running

Service	Container	Port	Description
Traefik	`traefik`	6000 (web), 8080 (dashboard)	API gateway, auth middlewares
PostgreSQL	`kaiten-db`	5452	Database with WAL replication
API	`kaiten-api`	— (behind Traefik)	Go REST + GraphQL server
Seeder	`kaiten-seeder`	— (one-shot)	Database seeding

Next Step

→ Explore Demo Data

Quickstart — Self-Hosted

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