Deployment

Note: Comper is currently in private beta. To access the Docker image, you'll need to request a Docker Hub access token from us. Please contact us to get started.

Comper is fully multi-tenant: multiple boards can run on the same server instance. However, each board instance is hosted on a single server (not horizontally scalable by design). This means that while a single Comper server can host many boards, an individual board cannot be distributed across multiple servers.

Runtime Shape

• Single web server (default port 8001) serves:
  • The API
  • WebSockets
  • The built frontend SPA from frontend/dist (static middleware + SPA fallback to index.html)
• Background work runs in-process using Loco workers + a Postgres-backed queue.
• Local storage path is used for runtime storage (STORAGE_PATH, default /comper/storage).
• Postgres database is required for core persistence and the background queue (DATABASE_URL).

Configuration

Core Environment Variables

• FRONTEND_URL (required; also used for OAuth redirect URLs and links)
• JWT_SECRET (required; JWT auth enabled, 7-day expiration configured)
• MAX_CPU_THREADS (0 = auto-detect)
• REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS
• LOG_FORMAT (compact/pretty/json)

Database & Queue (Postgres)

• DATABASE_URL (used for both DB and queue)
• WORKERS (queue concurrency)
• DB pool sizing via DB_MIN_CONNECTIONS / DB_MAX_CONNECTIONS and timeouts

Email

• SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT, SMTP_SECURE, optional SMTP_USER/SMTP_PASSWORD
• SMTP_FROM

Sentry

• SENTRY_DSN, SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT

Authentication Modes

Authentication is configured via feature flags:

• Password auth: PASSWORDS_ENABLED=true
• OAuth providers are enabled when their credentials are present:
  • Google: GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID / GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
  • GitHub: GITHUB_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID / GITHUB_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
  • Microsoft: MICROSOFT_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID / MICROSOFT_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET / MICROSOFT_OAUTH_TENANT_ID
• SAML: SAML_ENABLED=true plus SAML-specific settings (SAML_IDP_METADATA_PATH, SAML_SP_ENTITY_ID, SAML_SP_ACS_URL, SAML_PROVIDER)

Why Boards Are Not Horizontally Scalable

While Comper is fully multi-tenant (multiple boards can share a server), each board instance is hosted on a single server and cannot be distributed across multiple servers. This design choice enables:

• WebSocket presence/collaboration with a single coordination point per board.
• Local filesystem storage (e.g. STORAGE_PATH) and RocksDB cache usage (instance-local, optimized for fast access).
• In-process worker execution with a single application runtime coordinating work and UI updates for each board.

This architecture is optimized for single-server deployments where multiple boards can coexist efficiently on the same instance.

Docker Image Access

The Comper Docker image is hosted on Docker Hub under comperio/comper. To access it, you'll need:

1. Request an access token - Contact us to receive a Docker Hub token

2. Login to Docker Hub:

   docker login -u comperio

   Use the token provided to you when prompted for the password.

3. Pull the image:

   docker pull comperio/comper:latest

Backend Functionality

Beyond what is exposed via the UI, the backend also:

• Parses git repositories, groups content by language, and stores computed results in a RocksDB cache for fast retrieval.