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Self-hosting

One command stands up the full stack — web, API, and Postgres with migrations applied on boot. Point the LLM at Ollama and your candidate data never touches a third party.

The 60-second version

git clone https://github.com/abhay-yemekar/hirelens.git && cd hirelens
cp .env.example .env        # set BETTER_AUTH_SECRET (openssl rand -base64 32)
docker compose up --build -d

web → localhost:3000 · API health → localhost:4000/api/health · Postgres → localhost:5433. Images build from apps/api/Dockerfile and apps/web/Dockerfile; rebuilds happen only when sources change.

What's in the stack

Container	Image	Notes
hirelens-postgres	`pgvector/pgvector:pg16`	Vector extension baked in; data in the `hirelens_pgdata` volume
hirelens-api	built from source	Hono server; applies migrations on boot
hirelens-web	built from source	Next.js standalone output

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Purpose
`BETTER_AUTH_SECRET`	yes	Auth signing secret — `openssl rand -base64 32`
`BETTER_AUTH_URL`	yes	Web origin (default `http://localhost:3000`)
`DATABASE_URL`	yes	Postgres connection string
`CORS_ORIGINS`	no	Allowed web origins (default covers :3000)
`HIRELENS_LLM_PROVIDER` / `_MODEL` / `_API_KEY`	no	Enables real scoring; without them derive/score return `503 llm_not_configured`
`HIRELENS_LLM_FALLBACKS` (+ per-provider `HIRELENS_LLM_<ID>_MODEL`, `_API_KEY`)	no	Failover chain for overloaded moments. Every fallback needs its own `_MODEL` (a provider never inherits another provider's model id — validation fails at boot otherwise), e.g. `openai/gpt-oss-120b` for Groq.
`HIRELENS_LLM_DEADLINE_MS`	no	Overall retry/failover deadline in ms (default 120000). Keeps the retry ladder inside serverless function limits.
`SENTRY_DSN`, `LANGFUSE_*`, `NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY`	no	Observability — strict no-ops until set

Local LLM mode (resumes never leave)

Install Ollama, pull a model, and point the API at it:

HIRELENS_LLM_PROVIDER=ollama
HIRELENS_LLM_MODEL=llama3.1
HIRELENS_LLM_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434

With this configuration the entire pipeline — parsing, rubric derivation, scoring, evidence extraction — runs inside your network.

Backups

The entire state of an instance is one Postgres database:

docker exec hirelens-postgres pg_dump -U postgres hirelens > backup.sql
# restore:
cat backup.sql | docker exec -i hirelens-postgres psql -U postgres hirelens

Upgrades

git pull
docker compose up --build -d

Migrations run automatically on API boot. Down-time is one container restart. To wipe everything for a clean test: docker compose down -v — ⚠️ this deletes the data volume.