Install go, docker, and NodeJS. Note that a NodeJS version of at least 24 is required.

Install ctags (required by zoekt)

// macOS:
brew install universal-ctags

// Linux:
snap install universal-ctags

Install corepack:

npm install -g corepack

Install yarn:

npm install --global yarn

Clone the repository with submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot.git

Run make to build zoekt and install dependencies:

cd sourcebot
make

The zoekt binaries and web dependencies are placed into bin and node_modules respectively.

Note: make should also be run whenever switching between branches to ensure all dependencies are upto date.

Start the development Docker containers for PostgreSQL and Redis.

docker compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up -d

Generate the database schema.

yarn dev:prisma:migrate:dev

Create a copy of .env.development and name it .env.development.local. Update the required environment variables.

If you're using a declarative configuration file, create a configuration file and update the CONFIG_PATH environment variable in your .env.development.local file.

Start Sourcebot with the command:

yarn dev

A .sourcebot directory will be created and zoekt will begin to index the repositories found in the config.json file.

Start searching at http://localhost:3000.