--- title: Talk Quickstart permalink: / --- {% include badges.html %} Online comments are broken. Our open-source Talk tool rethinks how moderation, comment display, and conversation function, creating the opportunity for safer, smarter discussions around your work. Read more about our product features and goals [here](https://coralproject.net/products/talk.html){:target="_blank"}. The documentation available here is pertaining to the technical details for installing, configuring, and deploying Talk. Talk is a [Node](https://nodejs.org/){:target="_blank"} application with dependencies managed by [Yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install){:target="_blank"} that connects to [MongoDB](https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/installation/){:target="_blank"} and [Redis](https://redis.io/topics/quickstart){:target="_blank"} databases in order to persist data. The following versions are supported: - Node {{ site.versions.node }} - Yarn {{ site.versions.yarn }} - MongoDB {{ site.versions.mongodb }} - Redis {{ site.versions.redis }} An optional dependency for Talk is [Docker](https://www.docker.com/community-edition#/download){:target="_blank"}. It is used during [development](#development) to setup the database and can be used to [install via Docker](#installation-from-docker). We have tested Talk and this documentation with versions {{ site.versions.docker }}. Another optional dependency for Talk is [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/){:target="_blank"}. It can be used to setup your environment easily for testing. We have tested Talk and this documentation with versions {{ site.versions.docker_compose }}. ## Installation ### Installation from Docker To use Talk without major customization you can run the application using our provided docker image. The following is a `docker-compose.yml` file that can be used to setup Talk: ```yml {% include files/docker-compose.yml %} ``` This is the bare minimum needed to run the demo, for more configuration variables, check out the [Configuration]({{ "/configuration/" | relative_url }}) section. {: .code-aside} And you can then start it with: ```bash docker-compose up -d ``` This process will take a minute or two, it has to download docker images for the required databases and Talk as well as setup the environments. Now that you've started the services started using compose, you should see output that resembles the following: ``` Creating mongo_1 ... Creating redis_1 ... Creating mongo_1 ... done Creating redis_1 ... done Creating talk_1 ... Creating talk_1 ... done ``` {: .no-copy } And when you run `docker-compose ps`, you should see something like: ``` Name Command State Ports ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mongo_1 docker-entrypoint.sh mongod Up 27017/tcp redis_1 docker-entrypoint.sh redis ... Up 6379/tcp talk_1 yarn start Up 0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp ``` {: .no-copy } Continue onto the [Running](#running) section for details on how to complete the installation and get started using Talk. ### Installation from Source To install Talk from Source, ensure that you have the version of Node as specified above. First we will download and extract the latest codebase of Talk: ```bash curl -sLo talk.tar.gz https://github.com/coralproject/talk/archive/master.tar.gz mkdir -p talk tar xzf talk.tar.gz -C talk --strip-components 1 cd talk ``` From here we need to fetch the dependencies and build the static assets using Yarn: ```bash yarn yarn build ``` You can either setup the required databases by visiting the docs for [MongoDB](https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/installation/){:target="_blank"} and [Redis](https://redis.io/topics/quickstart){:target="_blank"}, or using the following commands which will leverage Docker: ```bash docker run -p 127.0.0.1:6379:6379 -d redis docker run -p 127.0.0.1:27017:27017 -d mongo ``` Didn't work? Sometimes you may already have a container running on these ports, run `docker ps` to see what other containers you have running and running `docker stop ` on those containers to stop them. {: .code-aside} _This documentation assumes that you will be running MongoDB on `127.0.0.1:27017` and Redis on `127.0.0.1:6379`. The above Docker commands bind MongoDB and Redis on these interfaces for you._ We should then specify the configuration variables that can be used to run the application locally in a file named `.env`. This will be read by the application when running in development mode: ```bash NODE_ENV=development TALK_MONGO_URL=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/talk TALK_REDIS_URL=redis://127.0.0.1:6379 TALK_ROOT_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3000 TALK_PORT=3000 TALK_JWT_SECRET=password TALK_FACEBOOK_APP_ID=A-Facebook-App-ID TALK_FACEBOOK_APP_SECRET=A-Facebook-App-Secret ``` This is only the bare minimum needed to run the demo, for more configuration variables, check out the [Configuration]({{ "/configuration/" | relative_url }}) section. Facebook login above will definitely not work unless you change those values as well. {: .code-aside} You can now start the application by running: ```bash yarn dev-start ``` Continue onto the [Running](#running) section for details on how to complete the installation and get started using Talk. ## Running You can now navigate to [http://127.0.0.1:3000/admin/install](http://127.0.0.1:3000/admin/install){:target="_blank"} and go through the admin installation. There you will be prompted to create your first admin account, and specify the domain whitelist for domains that are allowed to have the comment box on. _During development, ensure you whitelist 127.0.0.1:3000 otherwise the [http://127.0.0.1:3000/](http://127.0.0.1:3000/){:target="_blank"} page will not load._ Once you've completed the installation, you can visit [http://127.0.0.1:3000/](http://127.0.0.1:3000/){:target="_blank"} where you can view our development area where we test out features in Talk where you can write comments and see them in the admin interface where you can do moderation and reconfigure the user experience. ## Demo If you've followed the documentation above, you'll now have a running copy of Talk. To demonstrate what your own self-hosted copy of Talk can do, below you'll find a demo that can be used to test the copy that is running now on your machine. {% include demo.html %} At this point you've successfully installed, configured, and ran your very own instance of Talk! Continue through this documentation on this site to learn more on how to configure, develop with, and contribute to Talk!