nself start

Boot the full nSelf stack. If no Compose config exists yet, nself start calls nself build first to generate one, then brings all services up.

Quick start

# Start everything
nself start

# Same thing — alias
nself up

Synopsis

nself start [FLAGS]

Description

nself start is the single command to go from zero to a running nSelf stack. It:

1. Checks whether a generated docker-compose.yml exists. If not, runs nself build automatically to generate one from your environment config.
2. Pulls any missing Docker images.
3. Starts all required services: Postgres, Hasura, Auth, Nginx.
4. Starts any optional services you have enabled via nself service enable.
5. Runs first-time SSL setup (nself ssl setup) if certificates are not yet present.
6. If NSELF_SCHEMA_HEAL_ENABLED=true, runs the schema heal pass before Hasura accepts traffic.
7. Prints a ready banner with the local and public URLs for each service.

All services bind to 127.0.0.1 internally. External access goes through Nginx on ports 80 and 443 only. Never expose internal service ports to the public network.

nself up is an alias for nself start. Both are identical.

Flags

What starts

Required services always start:

Optional services start only when enabled via nself service enable.

Examples

First-time setup

# Start from scratch — build generates the Compose config automatically
nself start
# ✓ nself build — generating docker-compose.yml
# ✓ Pulling images...
# ✓ Starting Postgres, Hasura, Auth, Nginx
# ✓ Running SSL setup
# ✓ Stack ready at https://api.local.nself.org

Force a config rebuild before starting

# After changing env vars or enabling new services
nself start --build

Start in the background

nself start --detach
# Use nself status to check everything came up
nself status

After start

# Verify everything is healthy
nself status

# Watch service logs
nself logs --follow

# Open the Admin UI
nself admin start

Environment variables

• NSELF_ENV — target environment (development, staging, production)
• NSELF_SCHEMA_HEAL_ENABLED — set to true to run schema heal on start

Exit codes

• 0 — all services started and healthy
• 1 — one or more services failed to start
• 2 — build step failed or invalid arguments

Related

• nself stop — gracefully shut down the stack
• nself status — check what is running
• nself service — enable or disable optional services
• nself ssl — manage TLS certificates
• nself self-heal — schema drift reconciliation