Installing VerifyWise

Before you begin

VerifyWise can be deployed on your own infrastructure, giving you complete control over your data. Before starting the installation, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place.

Choose your deployment method

VerifyWise supports two deployment approaches depending on your needs:

Production setup (recommended)

The production setup uses Docker Compose to run all services in containers. This is the simplest way to get VerifyWise running.

Step 1: Download the installation files

Create a directory and download the required files:

mkdir verifywise && cd verifywise
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bluewave-labs/verifywise/develop/install.sh
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bluewave-labs/verifywise/develop/.env.prod

Step 2: Configure environment variables

Open the .env.prod file and update these required values:

# Replace with your server's IP address or domain
BACKEND_URL=http://your-server-ip:3000
FRONTEND_URL=http://your-server-ip:8080

# Generate a secure JWT secret (run this command)
# openssl rand -base64 32
JWT_SECRET=your-generated-secret-here

# Set a strong database password
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your-secure-password

Step 3: Run the installation script

Make the script executable and run it:

chmod +x ./install.sh
./install.sh

The script will pull the Docker images, create the database, and start all services. Once complete, VerifyWise will be available at your configured FRONTEND_URL.

Development setup

For development, you'll run the frontend and backend separately with hot reload enabled. This setup requires more steps but gives you full control over each service.

Step 1: Clone and install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/bluewave-labs/verifywise.git
cd verifywise

# Install frontend dependencies
cd Clients && npm install

# Install backend dependencies
cd ../Servers && npm install

Step 2: Start database services

Run PostgreSQL and Redis in Docker containers:

# Start PostgreSQL
docker run -d --name mypostgres -p 5432:5432 \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your_password postgres

# Start Redis
docker run -d --name myredis -p 6379:6379 redis

# Create the database
docker exec -it mypostgres psql -U postgres -c "CREATE DATABASE verifywise;"

Step 3: Configure and start services

# Copy the environment file
cp .env.dev Servers/.env

# Start the backend (in one terminal)
cd Servers && npm run watch

# Start the frontend (in another terminal)
cd Clients && npm run dev

The frontend will be available at http://localhost:5173 and the backend API at http://localhost:3000.

Environment configuration

Here's a reference of the key environment variables you can configure:

First-time access

When you first access VerifyWise, you'll see the admin registration page. This is expected — the platform ships without any default users for security reasons.

1. Navigate to your VerifyWise URL in a web browser
2. Complete the admin registration form with your details
3. Log in with your new admin credentials
4. You'll land on the dashboard, ready to create your first use case

SSL and security

For production deployments, we strongly recommend enabling SSL/TLS encryption. You can obtain free certificates using Let's Encrypt with Certbot.

1. Install Nginx as a reverse proxy on your server
2. Install Certbot and obtain certificates for your domain
3. Configure Nginx to proxy requests to VerifyWise services
4. Update your .env.prod URLs to use https://
5. Restart the services to apply the changes