Docker (Optional Infrastructure)

Vectora doesn’t run as a container — the backend runs on the host (native binary or uv run vectora start). The project’s Docker Compose only spins up the optional infrastructure for complete mode: PostgreSQL, Redis, and Qdrant.

Spinning up the infrastructure

vectora config docker up

Or, from source (monorepo root):

scons docker

This brings up:

After it’s up

Configure ~/.vectora/.env:

STORAGE_MODE=complete
POSTGRES_DSN=postgresql+asyncpg://vectora:vectora@127.0.0.1:5432/vectora
QDRANT_URL=http://127.0.0.1:6333
REDIS_URL=redis://127.0.0.1:6379/0

Then run vectora start normally — the backend detects STORAGE_MODE=complete and connects to these services.

Why Redis Stack, not plain Redis

The redis-stack-server image includes the RediSearch and RedisJSON modules, used by the distributed LLM cache. Without those modules, Vectora automatically falls back to a local in-memory cache (nothing breaks, you just lose the benefit of sharing cache across instances).

See also

• Storage: lite vs. complete — when complete is actually worth it
• Requirements