Running Locally

You may start an instance locally for non-production use cases. For production use cases, please see the other installation options.

Configuration

The default config for Chat UI is stored in the .env file. You will need to override some values to get Chat UI to run locally. Start by creating a .env.local file in the root of the repository as per the configuration section. The bare minimum config you need to get Chat UI to run locally is the following:

MONGODB_URL=<the URL to your MongoDB instance>
HF_TOKEN=<your access token> # find your token at hf.co/settings/token

Database

The chat history is stored in a MongoDB instance, and having a DB instance available is needed for Chat UI to work.

You can use a local MongoDB instance. The easiest way is to spin one up using docker with persistence:

docker run -d -p 27017:27017 -v mongo-chat-ui:/data --name mongo-chat-ui mongo:latest

In which case the url of your DB will be MONGODB_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017.

Alternatively, you can use a free MongoDB Atlas instance for this, Chat UI should fit comfortably within their free tier. After which you can set the MONGODB_URL variable in .env.local to match your instance.

Starting the server

npm ci # install dependencies
npm run build # build the project
npm run preview -- --open # start the server with & open your instance at http://localhost:4173