Run from source

For developers

This page assumes you are comfortable with a terminal, Git and Bun. If you just want to run ReelVault, use Install & run instead — Docker or an installer is far easier.

A source checkout gives you the server and the API, but not the bundled web client — that lives in a separate repository. It is the right path only if you want to change the server itself.

What you need

• Bun installed.
• ffmpeg and ffprobe on your PATH — the installers and images provide these for you, but a source checkout does not.
• Git.

Run it

git clone https://github.com/ReelVault/reelvault.git
cd reelvault
bun install
bun dev   # http://localhost:3030 — API only, no bundled UI

Without a .env file, the server uses port 3030, stores its data in ./data, and writes auto-generated secrets to data/secrets.env with 0600 permissions on first boot.

The web client is separate

The browser and desktop app live in the website repository. Its README covers the dev server (port 3000, proxying /v1 and /api to :3030) and the desktop build. The client talks to the server through the typed SDK — see the SDK overview.

Server commands

bun dev              # watch mode
bun start            # production start
bun test             # test suite
bun run check-types  # tsc --noEmit
bun run db:migrate   # apply database migrations
bun run build-sdk    # build the @reelvault/sdk package

Next steps

• Server configuration — environment variables and settings.
• Backups & upgrades — upgrading a source checkout.
• Develop — the SDK and plugins.