Getting Started

Slite is a simple, self-hosted short-link application with visit analytics. It runs as a single Node.js process on your own server or workstation, requiring no cloud account.

1. Get Slite

Clone the repository to your host:

git clone https://github.com/miantiao-me/Slite.git
cd Slite

Alternatively, download compose.yaml and .env.example directly if deploying via Docker Compose.

2. Choose how to run

• Docker and Compose — recommended for production and self-hosting
• Source execution: requires Node.js 24 or newer and pnpm 11.11.0:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

The development server listens on port 5483 and writes state to ./data by default.

3. Understand local storage

All persistent state lives in a single local directory (/data by default, configured by NUXT_DATA_DIR):

Relative path	Role	Description
slite.sqlite	Authoritative database	Stores all links and application state
analytics.duckdb	Analytics database	Records visit events and powers dashboard statistics
files/images	Image storage	Stores uploaded social preview images
backups	Backup storage	Stores automatic and manual link JSON backups

Mount a persistent local volume to /data. Slite does not require external database services; SQLite and DuckDB are managed directly by the process.

4. Configure environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env and configure your settings:

NUXT_SITE_TOKEN=replace-with-a-strong-private-token
NUXT_DATA_DIR=/data
NUXT_TRUST_PROXY=false

Set NUXT_SITE_TOKEN yourself

This token is your dashboard login password and the credential used by API tools. It must be at least 8 characters long and contain no whitespace. Keep it stable — changing it invalidates existing sessions.

If you leave it empty or unset, Slite still serves public short links, but it generates an ephemeral random token in memory that is never logged or written to disk. The dashboard and API will remain inaccessible until you configure an explicit token and restart the container.

Other configuration options: Configuration Reference.

5. First login and first link

1. Start the service with Docker Compose:

docker compose up -d

2. Open http://localhost:5483/dashboard (or your domain)
3. Sign in with the NUXT_SITE_TOKEN you configured
4. Create your first short link

Unlike Cloudflare-based setups, Slite initializes its SQLite schema automatically on startup and manages an in-memory link cache that rebuilds on demand. No manual migration or storage warmup step is needed.

The dashboard supports multiple languages. Documentation is available in English and Simplified Chinese.