Memos is built with a curated tech stack. It is optimized for developer experience and is very easy to start working on the code:

• It has no external dependency.
• It requires zero config.
• 1 command to start backend and 1 command to start frontend, both with live reload support.

Working with Docker

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/usememos/memos
   

2. Use docker-compose.dev.yaml as default for Docker Compose, instead of docker-compose.yaml reserved for normal users

   echo 'COMPOSE_FILE=docker-compose.dev.yaml' > .env
   

3. Setup the environments

   docker compose run api go install github.com/cosmtrek/air@latest
   docker compose run web npm install
   

4. Start your services:

   docker compose up -d
   

Memos should now be running at http://localhost:3001 and change either frontend or backend code would trigger live reload.

Working without Docker

Prerequisite

• Node.js, requires version >=18.0
• pnpm, requires version >=8.0
• Go, requires Go >= 1.19
• Air for backend live reload
• Buf for generating TypeScript code from protobuf

Steps

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/usememos/memos
   

2. Start backend using air

   air -c scripts/.air.toml
   

3. Generate TypeScript code from protobuf with buf

   cd proto && buf generate
   

4. Start frontend dev server

   cd web && pnpm i && pnpm dev
   

Memos should now be running at http://localhost:3001 and change either frontend or backend code would trigger live reload.