Requirements
What you need before you start: Docker, a domain, and a TLS-terminating reverse proxy. Read the requirements.
The Desk
A real-time, self-hostable team chat application — workspaces, channels, threads, reactions, search, and scheduled messages. Own your data; run it on your own hardware.
Run your own instance
Section titled “Run your own instance”The Desk is built with Laravel, Inertia + Vue 3, Laravel Reverb (WebSockets), and Meilisearch. The production stack ships as Docker containers you run yourself — no SaaS, no per-seat pricing, your data on your infrastructure.
Installation
Two supported paths — pull the prebuilt image or build from source at a release tag. Install The Desk.
Configuration
Every setting is read from .env at runtime: APP_URL, mail, the
browser-vs-server Reverb split, and more. Configure your instance.
Feature toggles
Turn features like open registration on or off from .env.
See the toggles.
Architecture
What runs and why — the web app, Reverb, queue, scheduler, Postgres, Meilisearch, and Redis. Understand the stack.
Upgrading
Tag-based upgrades, automatic migrations, and version-scoped search reindexing. Upgrade safely.