Getting started
This guide gets an openPRM server running on a machine in your home.
What you need
Section titled “What you need”- A machine to run it: NixOS, or anything that runs Docker.
- PostgreSQL 15 or newer. openPRM creates its tables itself on first start.
- Optional, to turn notes into facts: Ollama with a
tool-calling model such as
gemma4:12b(the default).
Run it
Section titled “Run it”Pick one of the deployment guides. Both set up the database and backups for you, and run openPRM next to tendant if you use both:
- NixOS (recommended): Deploy on NixOS.
- Docker Compose: Deploy with Docker Compose.
Running the bare binary? Set at least:
| Variable | Why |
|---|---|
DATABASE_URL | The Postgres database. |
OPENPRM_OWNER_PASSWORD_HASH | Your login. Make one with openPRM hash-password 'your-password'. |
OPENPRM_CREDENTIALS_KEY | openssl rand -base64 32. Encrypts stored tokens; back it up separately from the database. |
then start openPRM and check curl -fsS http://localhost:8080/healthz.
See Configuration for everything else.
Sign in
Section titled “Sign in”Open the web UI (http://<host>:8080, or your tailnet address) and sign in
with the owner password, then start adding notes.
Next: learn how facts and sources work.