Docker

Elowen runs well in a container when you want it isolated from the host or managed alongside your other services. The image is small — node:22-alpine plus tmux and git — and all persistent state lives in a single SQLite file on a mounted volume, so upgrades are a container swap, not a migration.

The image

FROM node:22-alpine
RUN apk add --no-cache tmux git
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --omit=dev
COPY . .
RUN npm run build
EXPOSE 4400
CMD ["node", "dist/daemon/index.js"]

Build and run:

docker build -t elowen .
docker run -d \
  --name elowen \
  -p 4400:4400 \
  -v elowen-data:/app/data \
  -e ELOWEN_DB=/app/data/elowen.db \
  -e ELOWEN_ALLOW_OPEN=1 \
  elowen

tmux is required inside the image, not optional — agent sessions run in tmux inside the container. The apk add line above is what makes the Sessions module work.

Volumes and environment

Mount a volume for ELOWEN_DB so your data survives container restarts and rebuilds — without it, a recreated container starts with an empty database. One file is the entire persistent state: tasks, missions, memory, users, and settings.

Leave ELOWEN_ALLOW_OPEN off and bootstrap an admin instead when the port is reachable by anyone but you — see First-run setup.

Docker Compose

The same setup as a compose.yaml:

services:
  elowen:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4400:4400"
    volumes:
      - elowen-data:/app/data
    environment:
      ELOWEN_DB: /app/data/elowen.db
      ELOWEN_ALLOW_OPEN: "1"
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  elowen-data:

Bring it up with docker compose up -d.

Web UI

The image above runs the daemon only. To expose the web UI too, build and run it alongside the daemon as a second container and publish 4500, with ELOWEN_DAEMON_URL pointing at the daemon container — the same split the manual start describes.

Updating a Docker deployment

The database lives on the volume, so an update is a container swap:

docker build -t elowen .          # or: docker pull your-registry/elowen
docker stop elowen
docker rm elowen
docker run -d \
  --name elowen \
  -p 4400:4400 \
  -v elowen-data:/app/data \
  -e ELOWEN_DB=/app/data/elowen.db \
  -e ELOWEN_ALLOW_OPEN=1 \
  elowen

With Compose it is shorter: docker compose up -d --build.

Schema changes are additive and applied at boot, so the new container upgrades the existing database in place. Back up the volume's database file before a version jump anyway — the one-liner is in Production & Updates.

Next: Production & Updates