Docker

The recommended way to run Bakwas. Production-grade out of the box with Gunicorn, health checks, and a SQLite volume.

Quick start

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/alifbae/bakwas.git
cd bakwas

# Configure your provider keys
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env and set at least ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or another provider key)

# Start the container
docker-compose up -d

Bakwas is now available at http://localhost:5000.

No key? No models.

Bakwas hides any provider whose API key isn't set, so if the model dropdown is empty you need at least one provider key in .env. See Providers for the full list.

Compose reference

The repo ships with a working docker-compose.yml. Here is the minimal version:

services:
  bakwas:
    build: .
    container_name: bakwas-app
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    environment:
      - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY:-}
      - OPENAI_API_KEY=${OPENAI_API_KEY:-}
      - GEMINI_API_KEY=${GEMINI_API_KEY:-}
      - OPENROUTER_API_KEY=${OPENROUTER_API_KEY:-}
      - DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=${DEEPSEEK_API_KEY:-}
      - GROQ_API_KEY=${GROQ_API_KEY:-}
      - DEBUG=${DEBUG:-False}
      - SECRET_KEY=${SECRET_KEY}
      - RATE_LIMIT_SUMMARIZE=${RATE_LIMIT_SUMMARIZE:-30 per hour}
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
      # Optional: override the shipped provider config without rebuilding
      # - ./config/providers.local.yaml:/app/config/providers.local.yaml:ro
    restart: unless-stopped
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:5000/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 40s

Compose auto-loads .env from the project directory, so values flow into the container through the ${VAR} interpolations above. Only the variables listed in environment: are visible to the app — add new ones when you register custom providers.

Volumes

Host path	Container path	Purpose
./data	/app/data	SQLite database. Required if you want summaries to survive restarts.
./config/providers.local.yaml	/app/config/providers.local.yaml	Optional. Override the shipped provider registry without rebuilding.

Production notes

• The image runs Gunicorn with a single worker and 8 threads (gthread worker class). Idle memory sits around 60 MB because LLM libraries are lazy-loaded on first summary request, then rises to around 200 MB once a summary has been generated.
• The health check hits /health every 30 seconds and accepts 3 failures before marking the container unhealthy.
• Logs go to stdout/stderr and are visible via docker logs bakwas-app or docker-compose logs -f bakwas.
• Gunicorn request timeout is 120 seconds to accommodate slow LLM responses.