Getting Started

Pi-Chat is an open-source, self-hosted Slack alternative. This page covers what you need to run it locally.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or later
• Docker and Docker Compose (for local Postgres and MinIO)
• A Google Cloud project with OAuth credentials

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/alextheradu/pi-chat.git
cd pi-chat

Install dependencies

npm install

Configure environment variables

cp .env.example .env

Open .env and fill in the required values:

# Database
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/pichat"

# NextAuth
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3001"
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="your-secret-here"

# Google OAuth
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id"
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET="your-client-secret"

# Access policy
ALLOWED_DOMAIN="yourteam.org"
ADMIN_EMAIL="admin@yourteam.org"

# MinIO / S3 storage
MINIO_ENDPOINT="localhost"
MINIO_PORT="9000"
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY="minioadmin"
MINIO_SECRET_KEY="minioadmin"
MINIO_BUCKET="pichat"

Start local services

Spin up PostgreSQL and MinIO with Docker Compose:

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

Run database migrations

npm run db:migrate:deploy

Seed initial data

npm run db:seed

Start the development server

npm run dev

The app starts on http://localhost:3001 by default. Open it in a browser and sign in with a Google account that matches ALLOWED_DOMAIN.

Verify dependencies are healthy

npm run test:db
npm run test:minio

Both should report success. If not, check that Docker containers are running and your .env values are correct.