Building from Source

If you want to develop Svarla or run it without pulling pre-built images, you can build everything from source.

Prerequisites

Building containers and APKs (Makefile)

• Docker
• Make

Everything else (Node.js, Go, Android SDK) runs inside Docker — no local runtimes needed.

Local development (without Docker)

• Node.js 20+
• PostgreSQL 16+
• Go 1.22+ (only for working on the MediaBridge)

Using the Makefile

The project provides a Makefile as the primary build interface. All container and APK builds use Docker for reproducibility — no local Android SDK or Go toolchain required.

git clone https://github.com/packetmoose/svarla.git
cd svarla
make help    # show all available targets

Key targets

Target	Description
make apk	Build unsigned Android APK in Docker
make sign-apk	Sign the APK with a local keystore
make server	Build server container image
make mediabridge	Build MediaBridge container image
make all	Build everything (APK + sign + containers)
make release-apk	Build and sign APK locally (no tag, no publish)
make clean	Remove build artifacts

Environment overrides

Variable	Default	Description
BUILD_TYPE	release	APK build type (debug or release)
IMAGE_TAG	dev	Docker image tag
KEYSTORE_PATH	~/.android/release.keystore	Path to Android signing keystore
REGISTRY	(empty)	Container registry prefix
PUSH	false	Push images to registry after build
PLATFORM	(native)	Docker platform(s) for cross-compilation

Examples

# Build a debug APK
make apk BUILD_TYPE=debug

# Build server container with a version tag
make server IMAGE_TAG=v1.2.0

# Build everything with your own signing key
KEYSTORE_PATH=~/my.keystore make all

Server development (without Docker)

For day-to-day server development with hot-reload:

npm install
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set DATABASE_URL and INITIAL_PASSWORD at minimum
npm run migrate
npm run dev

npm scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start dev server with hot-reload (tsx watch)
npm run build	Compile TypeScript to dist/
npm run build:web	Bundle the web interface to dist/web/
npm start	Run compiled production server
npm test	Run tests (vitest)
npm run lint	Lint with ESLint
npm run migrate	Run database migrations

MediaBridge development (without Docker)

If you need to work on the MediaBridge directly (requires Go 1.22+):

cd mediabridge
go build -o mediabridge ./cmd/mediabridge/
./mediabridge

Edit mediabridge-config.yaml to set network.publicIp to your server's public IP.

Development with Docker Compose

The root docker-compose.yml (in the repo root, not docker/) builds everything from source with sensible defaults — no .env file needed:

git clone https://github.com/packetmoose/svarla.git
cd svarla
docker compose up -d

Server is at http://localhost:3000 with password dev.

INFO

The dev compose setup is for local development only. For production deployment with TLS, a public IP, and a domain, see Installation.