Developer Setup

Set up your development environment for Libredesk

Libredesk is a monorepo with a Go backend and two Vue.js frontend apps: the main agent dashboard and the live chat widget. Both use Shadcn for UI components.

Prerequisites

• Go
• Node.js and pnpm (if working on frontend)
• Redis
• PostgreSQL (≥13)

First-time setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/abhinavxd/libredesk.git
   cd libredesk
   
2. Configure Libredesk

   Copy config.sample.toml as config.toml and add your configuration:

   cp config.sample.toml config.toml
   
3. Build and install

   Build the libredesk binary and run the DB setup:

   make
   ./libredesk --install
   

   Sets up the database and prompts you for the System user password.

Running the dev environment

Full stack

Run the backend and both frontend apps in development mode:

1. Start backend server

   make run-backend
   

   This starts the libredesk backend dev server on :9000

2. Start the main app

   make run-frontend-main
   

   This starts the agent dashboard in dev mode using pnpm on :8000

   Requests are proxied to the backend running on :9000 (check vite.config.js for proxy config)

3. Start the widget app

   make run-frontend-widget
   

   This starts the live chat widget in dev mode on :8001, also proxied to the backend on :9000

   Only needed if you are working on the widget.

Backend only

make run-backend

Access the backend API at http://localhost:9000

Frontend only

make run-frontend-main

Access the main app at http://localhost:8000

make run-frontend-widget

Access the widget at http://localhost:8001

Production build

To build a production-ready binary:

make

This builds the Go binary and both frontend apps, embeds the static assets, and produces a single self-contained binary: libredesk.

To build just one app: make frontend-build-main or make frontend-build-widget.