Self-hosting

Run Healkite on your own infrastructure: one container with the API, the dashboard and the update CDN. Data never leaves your servers, and there are no usage limits.

Requirements

Docker (or Node 22.13+ without Docker)
A public HTTPS URL for the server, for example https://ota.example.com, behind your load balancer or a reverse proxy such as Caddy or nginx
512 MB RAM and some disk for bundles (or an S3-compatible bucket)

Start the server

Self-hosting licenses come with access to the Healkite source repository. From a checkout:

cd healkite
PUBLIC_URL=https://ota.example.com ADMIN_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 24) docker compose up -d --build

On first start the server creates its manifest signing key and secret in the /data volume, next to the SQLite database and bundles. Back up the whole volume; losing server-keys.json means apps with the old manifest key need a store update.

Create your organization

curl -X POST https://ota.example.com/v1/bootstrap \
  -H "x-admin-token: <ADMIN_TOKEN>" -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"orgName":"Acme"}'
# → { "token": "hk_…" }  an owner access key

Then remove ADMIN_TOKEN from the environment and restart. Use the token with the CLI:

npx healkite login --api-url https://ota.example.com --token hk_…

Create a GitHub OAuth app with the callback URL https://ota.example.com/v1/auth/github/callback, set GITHUB_CLIENT_ID and GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET, restart, and invite people:

npx healkite members add <github-login> --role owner

Open https://ota.example.com and sign in. For Okta, Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, see SSO.

Point your apps at it

	iOS `Info.plist`	Android `strings.xml`
CDN URL	`HealkiteCdnUrl` = `https://ota.example.com/cdn`	`healkite_cdn_url`
Manifest key	`HealkiteManifestKey` = `manifestPublicKey` from `GET /v1/config`	`healkite_manifest_key`

Configuration

Variable	Default
`API_BASE_URL`	`http://localhost:8787`	Public URL of the server
`PORT`	`8787`
`DATABASE_PATH`	`/data/healkite.db`	SQLite database
`BLOB_DIR`	`/data/cdn`	Bundle storage when S3 isn't set
`S3_ENDPOINT`, `S3_BUCKET`, `S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID`, `S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`, `S3_REGION`		Store bundles in S3, R2, MinIO or GCS (S3 API)
`CDN_BASE_URL`	`<API_BASE_URL>/cdn`	A CDN in front of `/cdn` or the bucket
`GITHUB_CLIENT_ID`, `GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`		Dashboard sign-in
`ADMIN_TOKEN`		One-time bootstrap
`MANIFEST_SIGNING_KEY`, `MANIFEST_PUBLIC_KEY`, `AUTH_SECRET`	generated	Bring your own keys instead
`SIGNUP_MODE`	`invite`	`open` lets anyone with GitHub create an org
`GUARD_INTERVAL_SEC`	`60`	How often guarded rollouts and schedules are evaluated

Scaling

The server is stateless apart from SQLite and the bundle directory. For heavy traffic, put a CDN in front of /cdn (manifests are cacheable for 60 seconds, bundles forever) and set CDN_BASE_URL. The same code also runs on Cloudflare Workers with D1 and R2, which is how Healkite Cloud runs.

Without Docker

pnpm install && node scripts/build-selfhost.mjs
cd dist/selfhost && API_BASE_URL=https://ota.example.com DASHBOARD_DIR=dashboard \
  DATABASE_PATH=data/healkite.db BLOB_DIR=data/cdn node server.mjs

Updating

Pull the new version and run docker compose up -d --build. Database migrations run on start.

Self-hosting

#Requirements

#Start the server

#Create your organization

#Dashboard sign-in

#Point your apps at it

#Configuration

#Scaling

#Without Docker

#Updating