authentik/website/docs/developer-docs/setup/frontend-dev-environment.md

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Frontend-only development environment

If you want to only make changes on the UI, you don't need a backend running from source. You can user the docker-compose install with a few customizations.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (any recent version should work; we use 22.x to build)
• Make (again, any recent version should work)
• Docker and Docker Compose

:::info Depending on platform, some native dependencies might be required. On macOS, run brew install node@22, and for Docker brew install --cask docker :::

Instructions

1. Clone the git repo from https://github.com/goauthentik/authentik.

2. In the cloned repository, follow the docker-compose installation instructions here.

3. Add the following entry to your .env file:

   AUTHENTIK_IMAGE=ghcr.io/goauthentik/dev-server
   AUTHENTIK_TAG=gh-next
   AUTHENTIK_OUTPOSTS__CONTAINER_IMAGE_BASE=ghcr.io/goauthentik/dev-%(type)s:gh-next
   AUTHENTIK_LOG_LEVEL=debug
   

   This will cause authentik to use the beta images.

4. Add this volume mapping to your compose file.

   services:
       # [...]
       server:
           # [...]
           volumes:
               - ./web:/web
               - ./local.env.yml:/local.env.yml
   

   This makes the local web files and the config file available to the authentik server.

5. Run docker compose up -d to apply those changes to your containers.

6. cd web

7. Run npm i and then npm run watch to start the build process.

You can now access authentik on http://localhost:9000 (or https://localhost:9443).

You might also want to complete the initial setup under /if/flow/initial-setup/.