PocketBase provides the central Workshop API at workshop.homarr.dev. It is not a per-instance Homarr service. Local deployment is for development and integration testing.

Local startup

Copy the repository-root .env.example to .env and create a GitHub OAuth app.
Set its callback URL to http://localhost:<PB_EXPOSE_PORT>/api/oauth2-redirect (port 8090 by default).
Set GITHUB_CLIENT_ID, GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET, PB_SUPERUSER_EMAIL, and PB_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD.
Run pnpm dev:workshop from the repository root. It starts PocketBase and the Docusaurus Workshop together and removes obsolete Compose containers.

Open the Workshop at http://localhost:3003/workshop. The API is at http://localhost:<PB_EXPOSE_PORT> and the emergency PocketBase dashboard is at http://localhost:<PB_EXPOSE_PORT>/_/ (port 8090 by default). 0.0.0.0 in PocketBase's server log is its container bind address, not a browser URL. Day-to-day moderation belongs in /workshop/admin, not the PocketBase dashboard.

Use pnpm dev:workshop:backend when only the API is needed. All Workshop configuration is read from the repository-root .env; there is no app-specific environment file. If port 8090 is unavailable, set PB_EXPOSE_PORT there. The website derives its local API URL from that port unless WORKSHOP_API_URL is explicitly set.

The image downloads the official PocketBase 0.39.6 release and verifies it against that release's checksums.txt. Migrations and hooks are mounted read-only.

GitHub OAuth configuration is synchronized from the environment on every boot, including for an existing development volume. Local CORS is restricted to the documented Homarr and Docusaurus origins in PB_ALLOWED_ORIGINS; production must set it to https://homarr.dev.

Roles and account states

member: publish, update/delete owned submissions, vote, and report.
moderator: report queue, submission removal, posting bans, and account disable/restore.
admin: moderator actions plus role changes.
posting_banned: cannot create or update submissions; can browse, vote, and report.
disabled: cannot authenticate or write.

Bootstrap the first admin through the PocketBase dashboard by changing a GitHub-authenticated user's role. All later staff actions use the restricted Workshop back office and are recorded in moderation_actions.

Backup and restore

PocketBase stores records and uploads in /pb_data. Stop writes or stop the container, then archive the named volume:

docker compose --env-file .env --file apps/workshop/docker-compose.yml stop workshop
docker run --rm -v homarr-workshop_workshop_data:/data -v "$PWD":/backup alpine tar czf /backup/workshop-backup.tgz -C /data .
docker compose --env-file .env --file apps/workshop/docker-compose.yml start workshop

Restore only into the same PocketBase version after preserving the current volume. Extract the archive into an empty workshop_data volume, start the service, and verify /api/health, collection migrations, a listing request, and an authenticated write.

Production checklist

Terminate TLS at the reverse proxy and forward the real client IP.
Keep superuser credentials outside Compose and rotate them after bootstrap.
Restrict the dashboard path to operators; GitHub users never need it.
Review the versioned default rate limits for OAuth, submissions, votes, reports, moderation, and general API traffic against production load before launch.
Back up /pb_data before every PocketBase or migration upgrade and test restore regularly.
Monitor health, authentication failures, 429/5xx responses, moderation actions, disk use, and backup age.