Clean machine to a running stack

Prerequisites

git, rootless Podman, and a compose provider. No Python, Node or uv on the host.

# Debian 13
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y git podman docker-compose
# Ubuntu 24.04
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y git podman podman-compose

Prefer Compose v2 (packaged as docker-compose) and fall back to podman-compose only where v2 is not packaged. Installing docker-compose does not install a Docker daemon; Podman still runs the containers.

Rootless Podman (the tested path)

curl -fLO https://github.com/Dyluhn/disco-releases/releases/download/v0.2.0/disco-source-v0.2.0.tar.gz
curl -fLO https://github.com/Dyluhn/disco-releases/releases/download/v0.2.0/SHA256SUMS
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS
tar -xzf disco-source-v0.2.0.tar.gz
cd disco-v0.2.0
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start dbus.socket
loginctl enable-linger "$USER"
systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket
export DISCO_SANDBOX_SOCKET=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock
podman compose -f compose.yaml -f compose.build.yaml up -d --build
podman compose logs app-server   # prints the UI URL and the pairing token

The two systemctl --user lines set up the per-user services Podman just added; skipping them is the usual cause of sd-bus call: Interactive authentication required part-way through a run. enable-linger keeps the stack up after you log out. The export points the Build sandbox at your rootless socket; keep it exported for every later podman compose command in the same shell.

Rootless Docker

Do not run the Podman lines. Rootless Docker comes from Docker’s installer, not a distribution package:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y git curl uidmap dbus-user-session docker-compose-v2
sudo systemctl disable --now docker.service docker.socket
systemctl --user daemon-reload && systemctl --user start dbus.socket
loginctl enable-linger "$USER"
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/rootless | sh
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
export DOCKER_HOST="unix://$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/docker.sock"
curl -fLO https://github.com/Dyluhn/disco-releases/releases/download/v0.2.0/disco-source-v0.2.0.tar.gz
curl -fLO https://github.com/Dyluhn/disco-releases/releases/download/v0.2.0/SHA256SUMS
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS
tar -xzf disco-source-v0.2.0.tar.gz
cd disco-v0.2.0
DISCO_LOCAL_ENGINE=docker DISCO_SANDBOX_SOCKET=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/docker.sock docker compose -f compose.yaml -f compose.build.yaml up -d --build

On Ubuntu 23.10 and later the installer stops at RootlessKit failed because unprivileged user namespaces are restricted; the reference has the AppArmor exception to finish the install. A build from a checkout that dies within 20 seconds on a dns error is rootless Docker’s network namespace, not Disco: give the daemon explicit resolvers in ~/.config/docker/daemon.json.

Windows

Use WSL2 with a Debian or Ubuntu distribution and follow the Podman path inside it. Docker Desktop works too; then host.docker.internal reaches services on the Windows side.

Confirm it is up

podman ps --format '{{.Names}} {{.Status}}'     # or: docker ps --format ...

Expect three containers Up … (healthy): app-server, agent-server, frontend. A fourth, sandbox-image, is expected to be Exited (0); it pulls the sandbox image and stops. Check with podman ps, not compose ps: the compose providers print different things and one never prints health at all.

Open http://localhost:8088. A browser on the same machine pairs itself. Next: connect a model.

Update

cd disco-v0.2.0 # download and review the new source archive before upgrading
podman compose pull && podman compose up -d

Your data lives in the disco-data volume and survives updates. Before a major version, take a backup: the reference covers backup and restore, starting at boot and upgrade and uninstall.

Hardware

• 8 GB RAM works with DISCO_ENCODER_TIER=lite (about 0.15 GB of encoder weights); 16 GB for the full local retrieval tier (about 4 GB).
• A useful local driver is a 24–32B-class instruction model with a 32k+ context window. Smaller CPU-only models are for smoke tests.
• Real Build runs want Podman or Docker isolation; the process sandbox is for local development only.

Reference: docs/self-host.md in the repository is the complete, versioned version of this guide. When the two disagree, the repository is right.