Your server, your coordinator.

The open-core coordinator runs on hardware you own. The only requirement is Docker — no external database, cache or queue to operate, and no feature gates inside what ships.

install ▸ three commands

Stand it up.

git clone https://github.com/usewrit/writ.git && cd writ
./scripts/gen-env.sh
docker compose up -d --build

Then open http://localhost:8000 and create your account. The first build is slow because the document and OCR runtime is baked in, so extraction works offline from then on.

Connect the first agent

In the app: Fleet → Connect a new agent, which mints a pairing code. Then, on the machine that will do the work:

curl -fsSL http://localhost:8000/agent.sh | sh -s -- WRIT-4K2P-9XQ

domain ▸ one command

Public domain and HTTPS.

One command takes an install from localhost to a real hostname with a real certificate:

./scripts/deploy.sh writ.example.com you@example.com

1. Checks Docker, the ports, and that your domain already points at this server.
2. Writes every domain-derived setting into the env file, consistently.
3. Brings up the bundled reverse proxy with automatic Let’s Encrypt certificates.
4. Waits for the certificate and verifies the live HTTPS URL.

Day-to-day

Ordinary Docker Compose, because that is all it is. Add --profile tls to any of these if you deployed with the reverse proxy:

docker compose logs -f
docker compose restart
docker compose down

# Removes the data volumes too — this deletes your data.
docker compose down -v

# Add --profile tls to any of these if you deployed with the reverse proxy.
docker compose --profile tls logs -f

secrets ▸ eight required

Secrets the stack will not start without.

./scripts/gen-env.sh generates all eight for you. In production the stack refuses to start if any one of them is missing, blank, or shorter than 32 characters:

Production settings

Four settings carry real weight once you are past localhost:

runtime ▸ two containers

What actually runs.

Two containers, plus an optional reverse proxy. There is no external database, cache or queue for you to operate, back up or upgrade.

account ▸ single owner

The first account.

Set the admin email, password and name in the env file before first boot — or leave the password blank and finish setup in the browser, with the email pre-filled on the setup page.

mcp ▸ writ-selfhost

Point an assistant at your own coordinator.

Your coordinator registers as writ-selfhost, on purpose — so it coexists with the Writ desktop app, which registers as writ, and with Writ Cloud, which registers as writ-cloud.

claude mcp add writ-selfhost -e WRIT_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY> \
  -- npx -y writ-mcp --url http://localhost:8000

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "writ-selfhost": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>" }
    }
  }
}

scope ▸ in and out

What is in the box, and what is not.

Included, with no feature gates

All of this ships in the self-hosted build and is not restricted by any plan:

• Recording and step editing
• The AI assistant in the recorder, using your own provider key
• Personas with TOTP and OTP, and warm sessions
• Running and scheduling
• Monitors — availability, certificates and change history
• Automations
• Distributed crawl across your own fleet
• Document and OCR extraction
• Publishing REST endpoints
• MCP tools
• An OpenAI-compatible chat surface
• Datasets, with export

Not in the self-hosted build

These are surfaces Writ operates rather than ships. They are absent, not degraded:

• The marketplace
• Billing and plan enforcement
• Multi-tenant organizations
• Managed AI — self-host is bring-your-own-key only
• Managed residential egress
• Provisioned cloud agents and autoscaling
• SSO and SCIM
• Scribe

upgrade ▸ license

Upgrades and license.

To upgrade, pull the repository and rebuild — the same three commands you started with, minus the clone.

reference ▸ next

Keep going

faq

Self-hosting questions, answered.

end ▸ deploy

Clone it and bring it up.

Three commands to a working coordinator, one more to put it on your own domain.