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Docker Compose is the recommended way to run Draft Thinker locally or in a self-hosted environment. A single docker compose up command starts all five services: the gateway, Redis, Qdrant, Prometheus, and Grafana.

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Services

ServiceImagePort(s)Purpose
gatewaybuilt from source8080API gateway
redisredis:7-alpine6379Short-term cache (key/value)
qdrantqdrant/qdrant:v1.14.16333, 6334Vector store for semantic cache
prometheusprom/prometheus:v3.2.19090Metrics collection
grafanagrafana/grafana:11.5.23000Metrics dashboards

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docker-compose.yml

services:
  gateway:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      - OPENAI_API_KEY=${OPENAI_API_KEY}
      - REDIS_URL=redis:6379
      - QDRANT_URL=http://qdrant:6333
    volumes:
      - ./config.yaml:/etc/draft-thinker/config.yaml:ro
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - qdrant

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"
    command: redis-server --maxmemory 256mb --maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru

  qdrant:
    image: qdrant/qdrant:v1.14.1
    ports:
      - "6333:6333"
      - "6334:6334"
    volumes:
      - qdrant_data:/qdrant/storage

  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:v3.2.1
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:ro

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:11.5.2
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
    volumes:
      - ./grafana/provisioning:/etc/grafana/provisioning:ro
      - ./grafana/dashboards:/var/lib/grafana/dashboards:ro
    depends_on:
      - prometheus

volumes:
  qdrant_data:

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Volume mounts

gateway
  • ./config.yaml:/etc/draft-thinker/config.yaml:ro — mounts your local config.yaml into the container at the path the gateway reads on startup. Pass a different file by editing this mount; see custom config below.
prometheus
  • ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:ro — Prometheus scrape configuration. By default this scrapes the gateway at gateway:8080/metrics every 15 seconds.
grafana
  • ./grafana/provisioning:/etc/grafana/provisioning:ro — datasource and dashboard provisioning files.
  • ./grafana/dashboards:/var/lib/grafana/dashboards:ro — pre-built dashboard JSON files.
qdrant
  • qdrant_data (named volume) — persists vector store data across container restarts. The volume is declared at the bottom of the Compose file and managed by Docker.

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Redis memory settings

Redis is started with two flags:
  • --maxmemory 256mb — caps memory usage at 256 MB.
  • --maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru — evicts the least-recently-used keys when the limit is reached, keeping the cache from growing unbounded.

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Deployment workflow

1

Set your OpenAI API key

Export OPENAI_API_KEY in your shell before running Compose. Docker Compose reads it from the environment and passes it to the gateway container.
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
Keep OPENAI_API_KEY as a shell environment variable rather than hardcoding it in docker-compose.yml. Docker Compose substitutes ${OPENAI_API_KEY} at runtime, so the key never lands in source control.
2

Start all services

From the repository root:
docker compose up -d
Docker builds the gateway image from the local Dockerfile, pulls the other images, and starts all five containers in the background.
3

Verify the gateway is running

curl http://localhost:8080/metrics
A response with Prometheus metric lines confirms the gateway started successfully.
4

Open Grafana (optional)

Navigate to http://localhost:3000 and log in with the default credentials (admin / admin). Pre-provisioned dashboards are available immediately.

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Common operations

View logs for a specific service: 
docker compose logs -f gateway
Stop all services: 
docker compose down
This stops and removes the containers but preserves the qdrant_data volume. To also delete the volume: 
docker compose down -v
Rebuild the gateway after a code change: 
docker compose up -d --build gateway
This rebuilds only the gateway image and restarts that container, leaving Redis, Qdrant, Prometheus, and Grafana untouched.

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Custom config

The gateway loads its configuration from the file mounted at /etc/draft-thinker/config.yaml. The Compose file mounts ./config.yaml from the repository root by default: 
volumes:
  - ./config.yaml:/etc/draft-thinker/config.yaml:ro
To use a different file, update the left-hand side of the mount: 
volumes:
  - ./my-custom-config.yaml:/etc/draft-thinker/config.yaml:ro
You can also override the config path entirely using the --config flag in the gateway’s CMD. For example, to point to a different path inside the container: 
command: ["--config", "/run/secrets/draft-thinker-config.yaml"]

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