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Contributing to DeerFlow

Thank you for your interest in contributing to DeerFlow! This guide will help you set up your development environment and understand our development workflow.

Development Environment Setup

We offer two development environments. Docker is recommended for the most consistent and hassle-free experience.

Option 1: Docker Development (Recommended)

Docker provides a consistent, isolated environment with all dependencies pre-configured. No need to install Node.js, Python, or nginx on your local machine.

Prerequisites

  • Docker Desktop or Docker Engine
  • pnpm (for caching optimization)

Setup Steps

  1. Configure the application:

    # Copy example configuration
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml

# Set your API keys
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-key-here"
# or edit config.yaml directly

  2. Initialize Docker environment (first time only):

    make docker-init

    This will:

    • Build Docker images
    • Install frontend dependencies (pnpm)
    • Install backend dependencies (uv)
    • Share pnpm cache with host for faster builds

  3. Start development services:

    make docker-start

    make docker-start reads config.yaml and starts provisioner only for provisioner/Kubernetes sandbox mode.

    All services will start with hot-reload enabled:

    • Frontend changes are automatically reloaded
    • Backend changes trigger automatic restart
    • LangGraph server supports hot-reload

  4. Access the application:

Docker Commands

# Build the custom k3s image (with pre-cached sandbox image)
make docker-init
# Start Docker services (mode-aware, localhost:2026)
make docker-start
# Stop Docker development services
make docker-stop
# View Docker development logs
make docker-logs
# View Docker frontend logs
make docker-logs-frontend
# View Docker gateway logs
make docker-logs-gateway

Linux: Docker daemon permission denied

If make docker-init, make docker-start, or make docker-stop fails on Linux with an error like below, your current user likely does not have permission to access the Docker daemon socket:

unable to get image 'deer-flow-dev-langgraph': permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock

Recommended fix: add your current user to the docker group so Docker commands work without sudo.

  1. Confirm the docker group exists: 
    getent group docker
  2. Add your current user to the docker group: 
    sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
  3. Apply the new group membership. The most reliable option is to log out completely and then log back in. If you want to refresh the current shell session instead, run: 
    newgrp docker
  4. Verify Docker access: 
    docker ps
  5. Retry the DeerFlow command: 
    make docker-stop
make docker-start

If docker ps still reports a permission error after usermod, fully log out and log back in before retrying.

Docker Architecture

Host Machine
  ↓
Docker Compose (deer-flow-dev)
  ├→ nginx (port 2026) ← Reverse proxy
  ├→ web (port 3000) ← Frontend with hot-reload
  ├→ api (port 8001) ← Gateway API with hot-reload
   ├→ langgraph (port 2024) ← LangGraph server with hot-reload
   └→ provisioner (optional, port 8002) ← Started only in provisioner/K8s sandbox mode

Benefits of Docker Development:

  • ✅ Consistent environment across different machines
  • ✅ No need to install Node.js, Python, or nginx locally
  • ✅ Isolated dependencies and services
  • ✅ Easy cleanup and reset
  • ✅ Hot-reload for all services
  • ✅ Production-like environment

Option 2: Local Development

If you prefer to run services directly on your machine:

Prerequisites

Check that you have all required tools installed:

make check

Required tools:

  • Node.js 22+
  • pnpm
  • uv (Python package manager)
  • nginx

Setup Steps

  1. Configure the application (same as Docker setup above)

  2. Install dependencies:

    make install

  3. Run development server (starts all services with nginx):

    make dev

  4. Access the application:

Manual Service Control

If you need to start services individually:

  1. Start backend services:

    # Terminal 1: Start LangGraph Server (port 2024)
cd backend
make dev

# Terminal 2: Start Gateway API (port 8001)
cd backend
make gateway

# Terminal 3: Start Frontend (port 3000)
cd frontend
pnpm dev

  2. Start nginx:

    make nginx
# or directly: nginx -c $(pwd)/docker/nginx/nginx.local.conf -g 'daemon off;'

  3. Access the application:

Nginx Configuration

The nginx configuration provides:

  • Unified entry point on port 2026
  • Routes /api/langgraph/* to LangGraph Server (2024)
  • Routes other /api/* endpoints to Gateway API (8001)
  • Routes non-API requests to Frontend (3000)
  • Centralized CORS handling
  • SSE/streaming support for real-time agent responses
  • Optimized timeouts for long-running operations

Project Structure

deer-flow/
├── config.example.yaml      # Configuration template
├── extensions_config.example.json  # MCP and Skills configuration template
├── Makefile                 # Build and development commands
├── scripts/
│   └── docker.sh           # Docker management script
├── docker/
│   ├── docker-compose-dev.yaml  # Docker Compose configuration
│   └── nginx/
│       ├── nginx.conf      # Nginx config for Docker
│       └── nginx.local.conf # Nginx config for local dev
├── backend/                 # Backend application
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── gateway/        # Gateway API (port 8001)
│   │   ├── agents/         # LangGraph agents (port 2024)
│   │   ├── mcp/            # Model Context Protocol integration
│   │   ├── skills/         # Skills system
│   │   └── sandbox/        # Sandbox execution
│   ├── docs/               # Backend documentation
│   └── Makefile            # Backend commands
├── frontend/               # Frontend application
│   └── Makefile            # Frontend commands
└── skills/                 # Agent skills
    ├── public/             # Public skills
    └── custom/             # Custom skills

Architecture

Browser
  ↓
Nginx (port 2026) ← Unified entry point
  ├→ Frontend (port 3000) ← / (non-API requests)
  ├→ Gateway API (port 8001) ← /api/models, /api/mcp, /api/skills, /api/threads/*/artifacts
  └→ LangGraph Server (port 2024) ← /api/langgraph/* (agent interactions)

Development Workflow

  1. Create a feature branch:

    git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name

  2. Make your changes with hot-reload enabled

  3. Test your changes thoroughly

  4. Commit your changes:

    git add .
git commit -m "feat: description of your changes"

  5. Push and create a Pull Request:

    git push origin feature/your-feature-name

Testing

# Backend tests
cd backend
uv run pytest

# Frontend checks
cd frontend
pnpm check

PR Regression Checks

Every pull request runs the backend regression workflow at .github/workflows/backend-unit-tests.yml, including:

  • tests/test_provisioner_kubeconfig.py
  • tests/test_docker_sandbox_mode_detection.py

Code Style

  • Backend (Python): We use ruff for linting and formatting
  • Frontend (TypeScript): We use ESLint and Prettier

Documentation

Need Help?

License

By contributing to DeerFlow, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the MIT License.