Skip to content
Cortadel

Search is only available in production builds. Try building and previewing the site to test it out locally.

Self-hosting the server

Cortadel runs as one container, one port. The ASP.NET Core process serves the REST API, the MCP endpoint, Swagger, and the React dashboard on :3001. It needs two things reachable from the container:

  1. a graph database — FalkorDB or Memgraph, and
  2. an embedding provider — Ollama, LM Studio, or Azure OpenAI (an external endpoint is required; there is no built-in embedding model).

Docker Compose (FalkorDB)

Section titled “Docker Compose (FalkorDB)”

FalkorDB is the recommended default — it’s fast and starts instantly.

docker-compose.yml
services:
  falkordb:
    image: falkordb/falkordb:latest
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"
      - "33000:3000"        # FalkorDB browser UI
    volumes:
      - falkordb-data:/data


  cortadel:
    image: ghcr.io/cortadel/cortadel:latest
    depends_on: [falkordb]
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"
    environment:
      MEMFORGE_Database__Provider: falkordb
      MEMFORGE_FalkorDb__Host: falkordb
      MEMFORGE_FalkorDb__Port: "6379"


      # Embeddings — point at your provider (example: a local Ollama)
      MEMFORGE_Embedding__Provider: ollama
      MEMFORGE_Embedding__Endpoint: http://host.docker.internal:11434
      MEMFORGE_Embedding__Model: nomic-embed-text


      # Optional: enable auth (leave empty to run open on a trusted network)
      MEMFORGE_Auth__Secret: ""


volumes:
  falkordb-data:
3001/api/v1
docker compose up
# dashboard  http://localhost:3001
# MCP        http://localhost:3001/mcp/{client}/{userId}

Memgraph instead

Section titled “Memgraph instead”
  memgraph:
    image: memgraph/memgraph-mage:latest
    command: ["--experimental-enabled=text-search"]   # required for BM25
    ports: ["7687:7687"]
    environment:
      MEMFORGE_Database__Provider: memgraph
      MEMFORGE_Memgraph__Host: memgraph
      MEMFORGE_Memgraph__Port: "7687"

Configuration

Section titled “Configuration”

Config binds from environment variables prefixed MEMFORGE_, using __ (double underscore) as the section separator — so MEMFORGE_FalkorDb__Host sets FalkorDb:Host.

Variable Purpose
MEMFORGE_Database__Provider falkordb or memgraph
MEMFORGE_FalkorDb__Host / __Port FalkorDB connection
MEMFORGE_Memgraph__Host / __Port Memgraph connection
MEMFORGE_Embedding__Provider ollama, lmstudio, or azure
MEMFORGE_Embedding__Endpoint Embedding provider base URL
MEMFORGE_Embedding__Model Embedding model name
MEMFORGE_Llm__Provider azure or lmstudio (LLM for extraction/dedup)
MEMFORGE_Auth__Secret Enable auth; empty = open

Health

Section titled “Health”
Terminal window
curl http://localhost:3001/api/health

Returns overall status plus per-dependency checks (database, embeddings, vector indexes). Use it as your container health probe.

Changing embedding provider

Section titled “Changing embedding provider”

The vector index dimension is fixed at first run. If you switch to an embedding model with a different dimension, startup hard-fails on a dimension guard. Re-embed everything via the maintenance endpoint, or override the guard for a deliberate migration:

POST /api/v1/debug/reindex-vectors        # rebuild vectors with the new model
MEMFORGE_Embedding__SkipDimensionGuard=true   # boot past the guard on purpose

Licensing

Section titled “Licensing”

Self-hosting is free for personal and development use. Business use requires a commercial license. Managed Cortadel Cloud removes the ops entirely. See cortadel.ai.