Deployment

Production setup with Docker Compose, environment variables, and security defaults

Requirements

VPS: 2 vCPU / 4 GB RAM minimum (Hetzner CX22 at ~4 EUR/mo, DigitalOcean at $24/mo)
Docker installed (required for sandbox execution)
Node.js 22+ (for npm install method)

Install via npm

The simplest way to deploy Augure on a server:

npm install -g augure
augure init              # generates augure.json5 + .env
# Edit .env with your API keys
# Edit augure.json5 with your preferences
augure start

You can run this inside a tmux or screen session, or create a systemd service:

# /etc/systemd/system/augure.service
[Unit]
Description=Augure AI Agent
After=network.target docker.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=augure
WorkingDirectory=/home/augure
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npx augure start
Restart=unless-stopped
EnvironmentFile=/home/augure/.env

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl enable augure --now

Docker Compose

Alternatively, Augure deploys as a single Docker Compose service:

services:
  augure:
    build: .
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config:ro        # Config is read-only at runtime
      - ./memory:/app/memory            # Memory store (read-write)
      - ./logs:/app/logs                # Audit trail
      - ./skills:/app/skills            # User skills
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock  # For container pool management
    env_file: .env                      # Secrets live here ONLY
    # No ports exposed! Telegram uses outbound polling.

Note the absence of a ports: section. The agent communicates exclusively via outbound connections (Telegram long-polling, OpenRouter API calls). No inbound ports are opened by default.

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the project root. This is the only place secrets are stored.

Variable	Required	Description
`OPENROUTER_API_KEY`	Yes	OpenRouter API key for LLM access
`TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`	Yes	Telegram bot token from @BotFather
`TAVILY_API_KEY`	If using Tavily	API key for Tavily web search
`EXA_API_KEY`	If using Exa	API key for Exa web search
`GITHUB_TOKEN`	If using GitHub preset	Personal access token for GitHub API

Example .env:

OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-abc123...
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=123456789:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz
TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-abc123...

Environment variables are interpolated into the config at startup using ${VAR_NAME} syntax. If a referenced variable is missing, the agent refuses to start.

Quick Start (Docker Compose)

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/FaureAlexis/augure.git
cd augure

# 2. Configure
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your API keys

cp config/augure.example.json5 config/augure.json5
# Edit config with your preferences (no secrets in this file)

# 3. Launch
docker compose up -d

# 4. Talk to your bot on Telegram

Security Defaults

Augure is secure by default with zero configuration:

Default	Description
No inbound ports	Telegram and WhatsApp use outbound polling. No firewall rules needed.
Secrets in env only	Config supports `${ENV_VAR}` interpolation. Secrets never stored in config files.
Sandboxed execution	The `security.sandboxOnly` flag (default: `true`) requires all code execution in Docker containers.
Trust levels	`sandboxed` containers have network disabled. `trusted` containers get host network (for code agents that need API access). Pool never reuses containers across trust levels.
Scoped volumes	Sandboxed containers only see their `/workspace`, not the host filesystem.
Container limits	Default timeout of 300s, 512 MB memory, 1 CPU core, PID limit of 512 (fork-bomb protection).

Attack Surface

For the current milestone (Telegram only):

Zero inbound ports -- the bot uses long-polling (outbound HTTPS only)
Attack surface limited to: SSH access, Docker socket, Telegram token
No web dashboard, no webhook endpoints, no exposed APIs

Self-Hosted Search (Optional)

To avoid paying for Tavily/Exa, you can run SearXNG alongside Augure:

services:
  augure:
    # ... (as above)

  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    restart: unless-stopped

Then configure the search tool:

{
  tools: {
    webSearch: {
      provider: "searxng",
      baseUrl: "http://searxng:8080",
    },
  },
}

Documentation Hosting

The Augure docs site (in apps/docs/) is a Next.js + Fumadocs application. It can be deployed to Vercel or any platform that supports Next.js:

cd apps/docs
pnpm build   # Build the static site

The docs are independent from the agent and can be hosted separately.

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