Getting Started

Spin up a Penombre instance in minutes with Docker Compose.

1. Get the .env file

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orochibraru/penombre/refs/heads/main/.example.env

2. Configure it

Edit the .env file with your configuration — see Environment variables for the full reference.

3. Set up Docker Compose

Penombre runs on SQLite out of the box, so this is the whole stack — one container, one volume:

services:
  app:
    image: orochibraru/penombre:latest
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - storage_data:/data
    env_file: .env

volumes:
  storage_data:
    driver: local

The /data volume holds both the SQLite database (/data/db) and your files (/data/storage).

Prefer PostgreSQL? It is optional — see Deployment for the two-container version.

4. Start the application

docker compose up -d

After a few moments, you should be able to access the application at http://localhost:3000.

5. Getting around

On a desktop the left sidebar holds everything: your drive, categories, any mounted volumes, settings, the API reference and — if you are an administrator — the admin panel.

On a phone that sidebar is replaced by the button in the middle of the bottom bar. It opens a drawer with the same navigation plus the create and upload actions, so nothing is desktop-only. The admin panel is in there too; it used to hide behind the profile menu, which a phone never showed.