Self-hosting

b10cks CMS is a Laravel application with a Vue admin UI. It runs anywhere PHP 8.4+ runs — a VPS, Docker, or any cloud provider. This page covers a production-oriented setup; for local development see the README on GitHub.

Requirements

Component	Requirement
PHP	8.4+ (with bcmath, exif, gd/imagick, intl, pdo_mysql, pcntl, redis extensions)
Database	MySQL 8.0+ / MariaDB (PostgreSQL and SQLite also supported)
Node / Bun	Node 20+ and Bun 1.0+ (build-time only, for the admin UI)
Composer	2.5+
Redis	Optional but recommended — caching, queues, real-time
ffmpeg / libvips	Optional — video previews and fast image processing
OpenSearch	Optional — relevance-tuned full-text search at scale

Installation

git clone https://github.com/b10cks/cms.git
cd cms
composer install --no-dev
bun install
bun run build
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate

Serve public/ with your web server of choice. The repository ships a Dockerfile based on FrankenPHP (Laravel Octane) with supervisor, ffmpeg, and libvips preinstalled — a good starting point for container deployments.

Processes

A production deployment runs three long-lived processes:

Process	Command	Purpose
App server	php artisan octane:frankenphp (or classic PHP-FPM + nginx)	HTTP: admin UI, Data API, Management API
Queue worker	php artisan queue:work	Background jobs: publishing, backups, imports/exports, asset processing, AI
WebSockets	php artisan reverb:start	Real-time collaboration, presence, notifications

Plus the Laravel scheduler in cron:

* * * * * php /path/to/cms/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Key configuration (.env)

Application

APP_URL=https://cms.example.com
APP_DOMAIN=cms.example.com
SANCTUM_STATEFUL_DOMAINS=cms.example.com
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false

Database

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=…
DB_DATABASE=…
DB_USERNAME=…
DB_PASSWORD=…

Each space can optionally run in its own isolated database — the management database stores users, teams, spaces, and billing, while space databases hold content. Space database provisioning requires credentials allowed to create databases; see Spaces.

Cache, queues, sessions

CACHE_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
REDIS_HOST=…

QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync works for evaluation but blocks requests on every background job — use Redis in production.

Real-time (Reverb)

BROADCAST_DRIVER=reverb
REVERB_APP_ID=…
REVERB_APP_KEY=…
REVERB_APP_SECRET=…
REVERB_HOST=cms.example.com
REVERB_SCHEME=https

Any Pusher-protocol-compatible service works as an alternative to self-hosted Reverb.

File storage

FILESYSTEM_DISK=local          # or s3 / gcs
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=…
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=…
AWS_BUCKET=…

Assets (uploads and generated image transformations) live on this disk. S3 or GCS is recommended for anything beyond a single-server setup.

Search

# Default: MySQL FULLTEXT — no extra infrastructure
OPENSEARCH_HOST=…              # optional, enables the opensearch driver
OPENSEARCH_USERNAME=…
OPENSEARCH_PASSWORD=…

The driver is chosen per space in its settings; after switching, trigger a reindex from the space settings.

Mail

Standard Laravel mail configuration (MAIL_*) — used for invites, notifications, and password resets.

AI (optional)

AI_MODE=space                  # AI configuration is managed per space
AI_DEFAULT_DRIVER=openrouter
OPENROUTER_ENABLED=true
OPENROUTER_MANAGEMENT_KEY=…    # provisions per-space keys

AI features (generation, translation, meta tags, asset classification) are opt-in and configured per space in Settings → AI.

Billing (optional)

LemonSqueezy integration for plan-based subscriptions on multi-tenant installations (LEMONSQUEEZY_*). Single-team installs can ignore this — spaces work without a subscription provider.

Upgrades

git pull
composer install --no-dev
bun install && bun run build
php artisan migrate
php artisan queue:restart

Space databases are migrated automatically alongside the management database.

Generating API docs

Your instance can serve its own OpenAPI reference:

php artisan docs:generate

writes specs per API prefix to docs/public/specs/. See Generated OpenAPI specs.