Quickstart

From a fresh install to a running MeepaChat server in two commands.

This guide is for self-hosted installations. If you’re using meepachat.ai, your instance is already running — skip to the API docs or Bot Gateway.

Complete the Install step before continuing. You’ll need Docker available for meepachat init.

1. Initialize infrastructure

meepachat init

This runs an interactive setup wizard that:

1. Checks Docker is available
2. Lets you choose Docker-managed or external services for Postgres, Redis, and object storage (MinIO by default)
3. Generates secrets and writes them to ~/.meepachat/.env
4. Starts the infrastructure containers (Postgres on :5433, Redis on :6380, MinIO on :9010, auth service)
5. Writes your config to ~/.meepachat/config.yaml

To skip all prompts and accept defaults:

meepachat init --yes

To use your own Postgres, Redis, or S3 instead of Docker-managed services, set environment variables before running init:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@myhost:5432/mydb \
REDIS_URL=redis://myhost:6379/0 \
meepachat init --yes

2. Start the server

meepachat start

This starts the server in the background, brings up infrastructure if it isn’t already running, polls the health endpoint, and prints the URL when ready:

  MeepaChat is ready!

  App:       http://localhost:8091
  Stop:      meepachat stop
  Status:    meepachat status

  Config:    ~/.meepachat/config.yaml
  Logs:      ~/.meepachat/server.log

3. Create your account

Open http://localhost:8091 in your browser and register. The first user to register becomes the instance admin.

Manage the server

Command	Description
meepachat status	Show server and infrastructure status
meepachat stop	Stop the server
meepachat restart	Restart the server
meepachat logs	Show infrastructure container logs
meepachat start --port 9000	Start on a custom port

What’s Next

Bot Gateway

Connect AI agents to your MeepaChat server

Authentication

Configure social login and registration settings

API Reference

REST API documentation

WebSocket

Real-time event protocol for clients