Installation
TheSpider has three components you may install: the brain server (Bun + Hono + Drizzle), the web UI (Nuxt, served same-origin by the server image in production), and the agent (a single Rust binary). This page covers a local dev setup; for production on-prem see On-prem deploy.
Prerequisites
| Component | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Brain server | Bun ≥ latest stable, Docker (for Postgres) |
| Database | Postgres 16 (bundled compose, or BYO) |
| Agent | Rust ≥ 1.75, a POSIX shell (sh) on PATH |
| Agent on Windows | run under git-bash or WSL (model execution shells out to sh -c) |
| Models | one or more coding-agent / LLM CLIs installed locally with working auth |
Boot the brain server (local dev)
cd server && bun install
docker compose up -d # Postgres 16 on :5433
bun run migrate
bun run serve # API (+ web SPA when image-built)
postgres://postgres:thespider@127.0.0.1:5433/thespider
DATABASE_URL defaults to the compose Postgres above. Override it to point at your own database.
Run the web UI (dev)
The web SPA is bundled into the production server image, but for local dev run it standalone:
cd web && bun install && bun run dev
Install the agent
Linux: grab a static binary (musl, x86_64/aarch64, no system deps) from the
releases page and drop it on your
PATH. Checksums ship as SHA256SUMS alongside each release.
macOS / Windows / from source:
cd client && cargo build --release # -> target/release/thespider-agent
The release binary is the whole agent — a single artifact. A strings check on it shows no prompt or methodology text (only one rendered prompt per claimed slice ever reaches the client, by design).
On-prem / production (Docker Compose)
For a real single-tenant install, skip the dev steps above and use the shipped image — it serves the /v1 API, the Better-Auth endpoints, and the web SPA from one origin, and migrates-on-boot:
cp deploy/.env.example deploy/.env
# At minimum set in deploy/.env:
# BETTER_AUTH_SECRET (openssl rand -base64 48)
# LICENSE_JWT (from your vendor; without it the instance is read-only)
docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml up -d --build
curl -fsS http://localhost:8080/healthz # {"status":"ok","mode":"onprem",...}
Full guide: deploy/install-guide.md. Air-gap: deploy/air-gap.md.
Verify the install
curl -fsS http://localhost:8080/healthz
./target/release/thespider-agent status # org/projects/entitlements + token source
Next steps
- Quickstart — run your first audit.
- Configure the agent —
~/.thespider/config.toml. - Environment reference — every server knob.