Install

Quick install

On any Linux host with Docker:

curl -fsSL https://stacky.lgtm.page/install.sh | sh

The script:

1. checks that Docker and the compose plugin are available
2. writes /opt/stacks/stacky/compose.yaml
3. starts stacky and prints the URL to open

Running it again updates stacky. It never overwrites your compose file. Read the script before running it if you like.

Options can be set as environment variables or flags:

curl -fsSL https://stacky.lgtm.page/install.sh | sh -s -- --port 8080 --stacks-dir /srv/stacks

Variable / flag	Default
STACKY_STACKS_DIR / --stacks-dir	/opt/stacks
STACKY_PORT / --port	5005
STACKY_IMAGE / --image	ghcr.io/patsissons/stacky:latest
STACKY_ADMIN_USER, STACKY_ADMIN_PASSWORD	create the admin up front

If your user can’t use Docker or write to the stacks directory, the script uses sudo for those steps. You can also pipe it to sudo sh.

Manual install

Stacky runs as a single container next to your other stacks. It needs:

• access to the Docker socket, so it can run docker compose and watch containers
• your stacks directory, mounted at the same path it has on the host
• a small data directory for its database and state

1. Create stacky’s own stack

Stacky manages itself as a regular stack, so put its compose file in your stacks directory:

/opt/stacks/stacky/compose.yaml

services:
  stacky:
    image: ghcr.io/patsissons/stacky:latest # also published as docker.io/patsissons/stacky
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 5005:5005
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - ./data:/app/data
      - /opt/stacks:/opt/stacks

2. Start it once by hand

cd /opt/stacks/stacky
docker compose up -d

This is the only time you run docker compose for stacky yourself. From now on stacky can update itself from the UI.

3. Create the admin account

Open http://<your-host>:5005. The first visit asks you to create the admin account. To skip that step, set STACKY_ADMIN_USER and STACKY_ADMIN_PASSWORD in the compose file instead.

Why the stacks path must match

docker compose resolves relative paths like ./data:/data on the client side, which is inside the stacky container. It then sends the resulting absolute path to the Docker daemon, which interprets it on the host. If /opt/stacks on the host were mounted at /stacks inside the container, a stack’s ./data would resolve to /stacks/app/data, and the daemon would create that directory on the host instead of using /opt/stacks/app/data.

Mounting the directory at the identical path (/opt/stacks:/opt/stacks) makes both sides agree. Stacky checks this at startup and shows a clear warning if the paths don’t match.

Image tags

Tag	Meaning
latest	Most recent release
X.Y.Z	A specific release
X.Y	Latest patch of a minor release
edge	Built from every commit to main (unstable)