Dobase

An open-source, self-hosted workspace with installable tools. Add a mail client, kanban boards, documents, chat, file storage, calendars, to-do lists, or video rooms — each shared with collaborators you choose.

Built with Ruby on Rails 8.1, Hotwire, and Tailwind CSS.

Tools

Tool	Description
Mail	IMAP/SMTP email with threaded conversations, search, drafts that sync, and calendar invites you accept from the message
Board	Kanban boards with labels, due dates, assignees, comments with @mentions, attachments, and an archive
Docs	Rich text documents several people write in at once, with each other's cursors shown live
Chat	Real-time messaging with replies, @mentions, edits, file sharing, and who's online and typing
Todos	Task lists with due dates, assignees, repeating tasks, comments, and attachments
Files	Folders, a picture gallery with slideshow, readable text, markdown and code, and public links with a password and expiry
Calendar	Syncs with any CalDAV server (iCloud, Fastmail, Nextcloud) or runs on its own; recurring events and invites
Room	Video calls powered by LiveKit, with screen sharing

Working together

• Write in the same document. Everyone types at once and the text merges as you go (Yjs, carried over Action Cable — no extra service). Each person's cursor shows in their own colour, with their name.
• See who's where. Faces in the sidebar and topbar show who's in each tool; the card, todo or file someone has open is ringed, and inside it you see them writing a comment.
• Search everything. Cmd+K jumps to any tool or action and searches cards, todos, documents, files, chat, events and mail at once.
• Several tools at once. In a wide window every tool you open is a tile, and the tiles arrange themselves: the chat next to the board, the calendar under the mail you're writing. Desktops keep sets of them apart. Cmd+K opens a tool; the rest is on ?.
• All of it by keyboard. The arrow keys go from card to card, mail to mail, file to file; Enter opens, the left arrow goes back, and with Shift a card or a todo moves.
• Notifications and @mentions, live in the app and as an email digest when you're away.

Themes

Dobase follows your system's light and dark mode, or wears one of 22 themes: Tokyo Night, Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Nord, Rosé Pine and the rest of the Omarchy set. Pick one under Profile → Appearance, or press Cmd+K and type its name. The typeface can be the system's monospace font, which on Omarchy is the font the desktop is set in. The mails Dobase sends you come in your theme as well. A theme goes all the way: labels, icons, the logo, the sign-in page, shared links and the installed app's title bar. On an Omarchy desktop, dobase theme follow makes Dobase switch along whenever you change the desktop's theme, with your own themes too.

API and command line

Everything in your tools is also reachable through a JSON API. Create a personal access token under Profile → API; tokens are read-only or read-and-write and can't touch account settings. See docs/api.

The dobase CLI is built on that API. Run it on its own and it opens a full-screen app for your boards, todos and chats; give it a command and it's made for scripts, and a Claude Code skill, so an AI assistant can read your board, add todos or draft a reply for you:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smgdkngt/dobase/main/cli/install.sh | sh
dobase login https://dobase.example.com
dobase card list "Product Launch"
dobase todo create "Launch Tasks" "Book the venue" --due tomorrow --assignee me
dobase search packaging

Self-hosting

Dobase runs as a single Docker container. Everything — web server, background jobs, database — is included.

Install with ONCE

The easiest way to self-host Dobase is with ONCE by 37signals: an open-source tool that installs a Docker image on a machine of yours and looks after updates, backups and SSL from a terminal dashboard. It runs on Linux and macOS: a cloud VPS, a Raspberry Pi, or your laptop.

curl https://get.once.com | sh

When it asks which application to install, enter the image's path and then a hostname:

ghcr.io/smgdkngt/dobase:latest

Or without the dashboard:

once deploy ghcr.io/smgdkngt/dobase:latest --host dobase.example.com

That's it. Dobase uses what ONCE gives it: the hostname for links in mail, and the server and sender from ONCE's email settings screen for the mail it sends. Backups from ONCE hold the whole installation (the database and every uploaded file).

All tools work out of the box except the Room (video) tool, which requires an external LiveKit server. ONCE runs a single container per app, so LiveKit needs to run separately — either via LiveKit Cloud or as a standalone Docker container. See Video conferencing for setup.

Deploy with Kamal

For the complete experience — SSL, zero-downtime deploys, LiveKit as an accessory — use Kamal. All you need is a VPS with Ubuntu.

git clone https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase.git
cd dobase

Edit config/deploy.yml with your server IP and domain, then add secrets to .kamal/secrets:

# .kamal/secrets
SECRET_KEY_BASE=<generate with: bin/rails secret>
SMTP_USERNAME=your-smtp-user
SMTP_PASSWORD=your-smtp-password

kamal setup    # First deploy — provisions server, builds image, starts app
kamal deploy   # Subsequent deploys

Kamal handles SSL certificates (Let's Encrypt), asset bridging, and rolling restarts automatically. LiveKit can run as a Kamal accessory — uncomment the livekit section in config/deploy.yml.

To run a public demo next to it, where visitors try Dobase in a throwaway workspace without signing up, deploy a second Kamal destination with DEMO_MODE=true. See docs/demo.md.

Deploy on Railway

No server of your own? Railway builds Dobase from this repository and runs it with a volume for the database. See docs/railway.md for the settings.

Docker

docker run -d \
  -p 80:80 \
  -v dobase_storage:/rails/storage \
  -e DISABLE_SSL=true \
  ghcr.io/smgdkngt/dobase:latest

Visit http://localhost and sign up; the first account needs no invitation. Remove DISABLE_SSL=true when running behind a TLS proxy or with a domain.

Without a SECRET_KEY_BASE, the container makes one on first start and keeps it in the storage volume, so it survives updates. If you pass your own, keep passing the same one: stored mail and calendar passwords are encrypted with it.

Docker Compose

For a persistent setup with all options, clone the repo and use the included docker-compose.yml:

git clone https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase.git
cd dobase
docker compose up -d

It answers on http://localhost:3000. A fresh key per up would sign everyone out on every restart, so leave SECRET_KEY_BASE unset (the container keeps its own) or put a fixed one in an .env file next to docker-compose.yml. Behind a proxy that does TLS, put DISABLE_SSL= (empty) in that .env: Dobase then insists on https.

Or create your own docker-compose.yml:

services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/smgdkngt/dobase:latest
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      - APP_HOST=your-domain.com
      # With no proxy in front that does TLS, serve plain http:
      # - DISABLE_SSL=true
    volumes:
      - storage:/rails/storage
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  storage:

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
SECRET_KEY_BASE	Kept in the storage volume	Signs sessions and encrypts stored mail and calendar passwords. The Docker image makes one on first start if unset; if you set it (openssl rand -hex 64), never change it
APP_NAME	Dobase	App name in UI, emails, page titles
APP_HOST	localhost	Host for the links in mail. ONCE's BASE_URL is used when this is unset
APP_LOGO_PATH	/icon.svg	Logo path (sidebar, auth pages)
APP_FROM_EMAIL	[email protected]	Sender address for emails. ONCE's MAILER_FROM_ADDRESS is used when this is unset
DISABLE_SSL	—	Set to true for non-TLS deployments (ONCE sets this by itself when an app runs without TLS)
SOLID_QUEUE_IN_PUMA	true in the Docker image	Background jobs (mail and calendar sync, sending mail, notifications) run inside the web process, so one container does everything. Set to false when you run bin/jobs in a container of its own
OPEN_REGISTRATION	—	Set to true to allow public signup (default: invite-only)
DEMO_MODE	—	Set to true for a public demo: visitors get a throwaway example workspace, and email, mail and calendar servers, public links and invitations are off. See docs/demo.md
SENTRY_DSN	—	Report errors to a Sentry-compatible collector — self-hosted Bugsink or GlitchTip work. Off when unset; nothing leaves the server
SENTRY_ENV	Rails environment	Name this installation in those reports

Email (SMTP)

Email sending requires SMTP configuration. Without it, all other features work fine — invitation and notification emails just won't be sent.

Variable	Default	Purpose
SMTP_ADDRESS	—	SMTP server hostname
SMTP_PORT	587	SMTP port
SMTP_USERNAME	—	SMTP username
SMTP_PASSWORD	—	SMTP password

Video conferencing (LiveKit)

The Room tool requires a LiveKit server. All other tools work without it.

LiveKit runs as a separate container — browsers connect to it directly via WebSocket, so it needs its own public URL.

Method	How to run LiveKit
Docker Compose	Uncomment the livekit service in docker-compose.yml
Docker	Run docker run -d -p 7880:7880 -p 7881:7881 -e LIVEKIT_KEYS=key:secret livekit/livekit-server
Kamal	Uncomment the livekit accessory in config/deploy.yml
ONCE	Run LiveKit separately, or use LiveKit Cloud

Variable	Default	Purpose
LIVEKIT_URL	—	Public WebSocket URL browsers connect to (e.g. wss://room.your-domain.com)
LIVEKIT_API_KEY	—	LiveKit API key
LIVEKIT_API_SECRET	—	LiveKit API secret
LIVEKIT_ROOM_PREFIX	—	Prefix for room names, for installations sharing one LiveKit server (e.g. demo-)

Example with Docker Compose (uncomment in docker-compose.yml):

livekit:
  image: livekit/livekit-server:latest
  ports:
    - "7880:7880"
    - "7881:7881"
  environment:
    - LIVEKIT_KEYS=your-api-key:your-api-secret
  restart: unless-stopped

Then add to the web service environment:

- LIVEKIT_URL=wss://room.your-domain.com
- LIVEKIT_API_KEY=your-api-key
- LIVEKIT_API_SECRET=your-api-secret

Storage & backups

All data lives in /rails/storage (SQLite database + uploaded files). Back up this volume regularly.

Development

Requirements

• Ruby 3.4+
• SQLite 3
• libvips (for image processing)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase.git
cd dobase
bin/setup

Or manually:

bundle install
bin/rails db:prepare
bin/dev

The app runs at http://localhost:3000.

Demo data

Seed the database with a fictional company ("Moonshot Snacks") to explore all tools:

SEED_DEMO=1 bin/rails db:seed

Log in as [email protected] / password123.

Commands

bin/dev                    # Start dev server (Rails + Tailwind watcher)
bin/rails test             # Run tests
bin/rails test:system      # Run system tests
bin/rubocop                # Lint Ruby
bin/brakeman --quiet       # Security analysis

License

MIT License