Self-hosting quickstart

Follow these steps to go from zero to a running Tambo instance on your machine using Docker Compose.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• OpenAI API key (or compatible provider)

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/tambo-ai/tambo.git
cd tambo

2. Set up environment

./scripts/cloud/tambo-setup.sh

This creates docker.env from docker.env.example.

3. Configure environment variables

Edit docker.env with your values. At minimum, set:

POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your-secure-password-here
API_KEY_SECRET=your-32-character-api-key-secret
PROVIDER_KEY_SECRET=your-32-character-provider-secret
NEXTAUTH_SECRET=your-nextauth-secret
FALLBACK_OPENAI_API_KEY=your-openai-api-key

docker.env.example includes placeholder values. Replace them with strong secrets before starting the stack.

See Environment Variables for the full reference.

4. Start services

./scripts/cloud/tambo-start.sh

5. Initialize database

./scripts/cloud/init-database.sh

6. Access your deployment

• Web Dashboard: http://localhost:8260
• API: http://localhost:8261

What's next

You now have a local Tambo deployment. To take it further:

• Set up authentication so users can sign in
• Deploy to production with Docker Compose or Kubernetes
• Learn the operational scripts for managing your deployment