Quick Start

Contents

• Step 1, Initialize
• Step 2, Build
• Step 3, Start
• Step 4, View URLs
• Step 5, Run a GraphQL Query
• Step 6, Stop

Get a full backend running in under 5 minutes.

Step 1, Initialize

nself init myapp

The interactive wizard asks:

Prompt	What it sets
Project name	PROJECT_NAME in .env , used as Docker network prefix
Base domain	BASE_DOMAIN , e.g. myapp.dev or localhost
Services to enable	Redis, MinIO storage, email, search, monitoring
Postgres password	Auto-generated secure password (accept or override)
Hasura admin secret	Auto-generated (accept or override)

Accept defaults for a fast local setup. Run nself init --fast to skip all prompts.

Step 2, Build

nself build

Generates docker-compose.yml, Nginx config, and SSL certificates from your .env. Takes a few seconds.

Step 3, Start

nself start

Boots the stack in order: PostgreSQL first, then Hasura, Auth, Nginx. You'll see each service reach healthy status:

✓ postgres   healthy (2s)
✓ hasura     healthy (8s)
✓ auth       healthy (5s)
✓ nginx      healthy (1s)

Step 4, View URLs

nself urls

Output:

Service        URL
─────────────────────────────────────────
Hasura         https://hasura.local.nself.org
Auth           https://auth.local.nself.org
GraphQL API    https://api.local.nself.org/v1/graphql

Step 5, Run a GraphQL Query

Open the Hasura Console at https://hasura.local.nself.org (or the URL shown by nself urls).

In the GraphQL Explorer, run:

query {
  __typename
}

Expected response:

{
  "data": {
    "__typename": "query_root"
  }
}

Your GraphQL API is live.

Step 6, Stop

nself stop

Gracefully shuts down all containers. Data is preserved in Docker volumes.

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