From Source

This guide runs HappyView directly with cargo run. If you’d rather run the whole stack in containers, see Running the development stack in HappyView’s CONTRIBUTING.md. To deploy from prebuilt images, see Docker.

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable)
• (Optional) PostgreSQL 17+ if you prefer Postgres over the default SQLite

1. Clone and configure

git clone git@github.com:gamesgamesgamesgamesgames/happyview
cd happyview
cp .env.example .env

Edit .env to point at your running services:

# SQLite (default — no setup needed, file created automatically)
DATABASE_URL=sqlite://data/happyview.db?mode=rwc
PUBLIC_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3000
SESSION_SECRET=change-me-in-production

Use 127.0.0.1, not localhost

atproto OAuth loopback clients are registered with 127.0.0.1. If you set PUBLIC_URL to http://localhost:3000, OAuth sign-in will fail because the redirect URI won’t match the loopback client ID. Always use http://127.0.0.1:3000 for local development.

Or if you prefer Postgres:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://happyview:happyview@localhost/happyview

See Configuration for all available variables and the database setup guide for details on both backends.

2. Create the database (Postgres only)

If using SQLite, skip this step — HappyView creates the database file automatically.

If using Postgres:

createdb happyview

Or if using a Postgres user with a password:

psql -c "CREATE DATABASE happyview;" -U postgres

HappyView runs migrations automatically on startup, so no manual migration step is needed.

3. Start HappyView

cargo run

HappyView starts on port 3000 (configurable via the PORT environment variable).

Next steps

Your HappyView instance is running. Install an interpreter before saving any script: a self-hosted instance ships with none (Languages). Then deploy a project to it.