Installation

This is the full first-time setup. Run one command on a fresh Linux VM and the provisioner chains the entire deployment for you. It is idempotent, so you can safely re-run it after fixing config or pulling repo updates.

Prerequisites

Step 1 — Get the stack onto the VM

Download the provisioning bundle and unpack it. It contains the single intelliask binary and the config/ folder next to it. Every command below is run from that folder (the one that holds the intelliask binary).

Copy the archive to the VM (or download it directly there with curl/wget), then unzip it:

# from your machine, copy the downloaded zip to the VM
scp intelliask-setup.zip user@your-vm:~
 
# on the VM
unzip intelliask-setup.zip
cd intelliask && chmod +x intelliask

curl -LO https://intelliask.mt/api/downloads/intelliask-setup/latest/intelliask-setup.zip
unzip intelliask-setup.zip
cd intelliask && chmod +x intelliask

Step 2 — Registry (nothing to do for a standard install)

config/.env ships pointed at the public IntelliAsk image registry, which serves every image — the main app, the six codeapi-* code interpreter images, and the supporting services (mongo, meilisearch, the RAG API, pgvector, redis, garage) — for anonymous pull. There are no credentials to set and no login step for a normal install:

# config/.env (pre-set — leave as-is)
REGISTRY=registry.intelliask.mt/

# config/.env
REGISTRY=registry.example.com/intelliask/

services:
  intelliask:
    # was: image: ${REGISTRY:-}${INTELLIASK_IMAGE:-}
    image: registry.example.com/intelliask/intelliask:v0.8.7

# config/.env
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=        # paste a key to enable the Anthropic endpoint
ANTHROPIC_MODELS=         # optional allow-list (blank = provider defaults)
ANTHROPIC_REVERSE_PROXY=  # optional Anthropic-compatible gateway URL

Step 3 — Provision

./intelliask provision

That single command performs all eight steps:

When it finishes you'll see the access URL, e.g. http://localhost:3080 (or your VM's address/port).

Provision flags

Pass these after provision:

Examples:

# Fresh VM, behind HTTPS via the bundled proxy with an internal CA cert
./intelliask provision --with-proxy --proxy-mode internal
 
# Public DNS with automatic Let's Encrypt certificates
./intelliask provision --proxy-mode auto --proxy-email ops@example.com
 
# Docker already installed, no boot service (e.g. a throwaway test host)
./intelliask provision --skip-docker --no-service

If you pass neither --with-proxy nor --no-proxy, you're asked interactively (non-interactive runs keep the existing PROXY_ENABLED value in config/.env).

After provisioning

• Open IntelliAsk at the printed URL (http://<host>:3080, or https://<host> behind the proxy).
• It runs on boot via systemd. Control it with sudo systemctl start|stop|restart|status intelliask, or directly with intelliask — see Daily Operations.
• Code Interpreter (codeapi) runs its sandbox from a prebuilt language-runtime package tree bind-mounted at ${STORAGE_ROOT}/code-interpreter-packages on the host. Build it with the upstream build-packages.sh and drop it there before the Run Code feature works — an empty tree yields "runtime is unknown" errors. The sandbox also needs host cgroup v2 (unified hierarchy).

First smoke-test

Confirm the deployment is healthy end-to-end:

1. Check the stack is up — intelliask status shows every service and probes the app's /health endpoint.
2. Register the first account at the printed URL. The first user you create is the owner.
3. Send a message. If you set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in config/.env (see Step 2), the Anthropic endpoint is already available — pick it and send a prompt to verify chat works.

Didn't set a key yet? Add one now and apply it without a full re-provision:

# edit config/.env → set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
intelliask up intelliask

Then add any other providers you need via Custom Endpoints.

Re-running provision

provision is idempotent. Re-run it any time to repair drift — Docker install is skipped when present, secret generation only fills blanks, and the Garage bootstrap reports "already configured" on subsequent runs:

./intelliask provision --skip-docker

Alternative Deployment (Advanced)

Next steps

With the stack running, continue through the rest of the guide: