codewhale/docs/DOCKER.md

Docker

DeepSeek-TUI publishes a multi-arch Linux image to GitHub Container Registry for each release.

docker pull ghcr.io/hmbown/deepseek-tui:latest

Quick start

Run the published image with a Docker-managed data volume:

docker volume create deepseek-tui-home

docker run --rm -it \
  -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY" \
  -v deepseek-tui-home:/home/deepseek/.deepseek \
  ghcr.io/hmbown/deepseek-tui:latest

Use a pinned release tag for reproducible installs:

docker run --rm -it \
  -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY" \
  -v deepseek-tui-home:/home/deepseek/.deepseek \
  ghcr.io/hmbown/deepseek-tui:v0.8.20

Local build

Build the image locally from a checkout:

docker build -t deepseek-tui .

Then run it with the same Docker-managed data volume:

docker run --rm -it \
  -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY" \
  -v deepseek-tui-home:/home/deepseek/.deepseek \
  deepseek-tui

Docker Hub publishing is not configured; GHCR is the supported prebuilt image registry.

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	yes	DeepSeek API key
DEEPSEEK_BASE_URL	no	Custom API base URL (e.g. https://api.deepseek.com)
DEEPSEEK_NO_COLOR	no	Set to 1 to disable terminal colour output

Volumes

Mount /home/deepseek/.deepseek to persist sessions, config, skills, memory, and the offline queue across container restarts. A Docker-managed named volume is the safest default because Docker creates it with ownership the container can write:

-v deepseek-tui-home:/home/deepseek/.deepseek

Without this mount the container starts fresh each time.

If you bind-mount an existing host directory instead, the image runs as the non-root deepseek user with UID/GID 1000:1000. The mounted directory must be writable by that user, or startup can fail while creating runtime directories under .deepseek/tasks. On Linux hosts, either use the named volume above or prepare the bind mount explicitly:

mkdir -p ~/.deepseek
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 ~/.deepseek

docker run --rm -it \
  -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY" \
  -v ~/.deepseek:/home/deepseek/.deepseek \
  ghcr.io/hmbown/deepseek-tui:latest

That chown changes ownership of the host ~/.deepseek directory. Skip it if you do not want the container UID to own your local config, and use a named volume instead.

Non-interactive / pipeline usage

When stdin is not a TTY, deepseek drops to the dispatcher's one-shot mode (deepseek -c "…"). Pipe a prompt on stdin:

echo "Explain the Cargo.toml in structured English." | \
  docker run --rm -i -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY ghcr.io/hmbown/deepseek-tui:latest

Building locally

# Single platform (your host architecture)
docker build -t deepseek-tui .

# Multi-platform (requires a builder with emulation)
docker buildx create --use
docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 -t deepseek-tui .

Devcontainer

The repository includes a .devcontainer/devcontainer.json configuration for VS Code / GitHub Codespaces. It pre-installs the Rust toolchain, rust-analyzer, and the deepseek binary. Open the repo in a devcontainer to get a ready-to-use development environment.

Release status

Docker image publishing is part of the release gate. The image is published to GHCR for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 with semver tags plus latest.