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Getting Started

This guide walks you through installing Changemaker Lite, running your first deployment, and logging into the admin dashboard.

Admin Dashboard

Prerequisites

  • Docker 24+ and Docker Compose v2
  • OpenSSL (for secret generation)
  • A Linux server (Ubuntu 22.04+ recommended) or macOS for development
  • At least 2 GB RAM and 10 GB disk space
  • A domain name (optional, but recommended for production)

Quick Start

git clone https://gitea.bnkops.com/admin/changemaker.lite
cd changemaker.lite
git checkout v2

bash config.sh

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:3000 and sign in with the admin email and password you configured. The API container automatically runs database migrations and seeding on first startup — no manual steps needed.

Change your password

If you used the wizard's generated password, change it immediately from the admin dashboard.

For the full setup walkthrough, see Installation.

Configuration Wizard

The config.sh wizard produces a fully populated .env file in 14 steps:

Step What It Does
1. Prerequisites Verifies Docker, Docker Compose, and OpenSSL
2. Environment file Creates .env from .env.example (backs up existing)
3. Domain Sets root domain + 14 derived variables, updates mkdocs.yml
4. Admin credentials Email + password (enforces 12+ chars, mixed case, digit)
5. Secrets Auto-generates 21 unique secrets (JWT, encryption, database, service passwords)
6. Email MailHog (dev) or production SMTP, optionally shared with Listmonk
7. Feature flags 9 toggles: Media, Listmonk, Payments, Chat, Events, Meet, SMS, Docs Comments, Bunker Ops
8. Tunnel Pangolin credentials for secure public access
9. CORS Auto-calculated allowed origins from domain
10. Nginx Renders .conf.template files with domain substitution
11. Homepage Generates services.yaml with 27 service entries
12. Permissions Creates 12 directories with container-friendly permissions
13. Upgrade watcher Installs systemd units for GUI-triggered upgrades (optional, requires sudo)
14. Summary Displays configuration summary + next steps

See Installation for detailed documentation of each step.

Services

Changemaker Lite includes 30+ Docker services organized into 8 categories:

Category Services Startup
Core API, Admin, PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx docker compose up -d v2-postgres redis api admin nginx
Media Fastify media API docker compose up -d media-api
Communication Rocket.Chat, Gancio, Jitsi Meet Individual docker compose up -d commands
Newsletter & Email Listmonk, MailHog docker compose up -d listmonk-app
Developer Tools Code Server, MkDocs, Gitea, NocoDB, n8n Individual docker compose up -d commands
Utilities Mini QR, Excalidraw, Vaultwarden, Homepage docker compose up -d mini-qr excalidraw vaultwarden homepage
Monitoring Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, exporters docker compose --profile monitoring up -d
Infrastructure Newt tunnel, Docker socket proxy Auto-starts with tunnel configuration

See Services Overview for the complete catalog with ports, feature flags, and detailed descriptions.

Next Steps