Setup¶

docbank is pre-1.0. Linux, macOS, and 64-bit Windows are supported on amd64 and arm64.

Requirements¶

• Linux, macOS, or 64-bit Windows on amd64 or arm64.

Installing a release archive needs no build toolchain. Building from source additionally requires:

• Go 1.26 or newer with CGO enabled — the store uses mattn/go-sqlite3
• A C compiler (Xcode command-line tools on macOS, gcc/clang on Linux, or a MinGW-compatible compiler on Windows)

Install a release¶

On Linux or macOS, the installer selects the native archive and installs docbank to ~/.local/bin by default:

curl -fsSL https://docbank.ai/install.sh | sh

Set DOCBANK_INSTALL_DIR to choose another destination. Set DOCBANK_VERSION=vX.Y.Z to install a specific release rather than the latest.

On Windows, run the PowerShell installer:

irm https://docbank.ai/install.ps1 | iex

It installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\docbank\bin and adds that directory to the user PATH. DOCBANK_INSTALL_DIR and DOCBANK_VERSION provide the same overrides as on Unix; set DOCBANK_NO_MODIFY_PATH=1 to leave PATH unchanged.

Both installers are maintained in the repository as scripts/install.sh and scripts/install.ps1; docbank.ai serves those files verbatim. Every downloaded archive is verified against the SHA256SUMS file published with its GitHub release before anything is installed, and the installers fail rather than substitute an unverified archive. If you prefer to bootstrap from a trust origin independent of the docbank.ai hosting, run the repository copy directly:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kenn-io/docbank/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

The installers fail closed: the archive is not extracted or installed unless SHA256SUMS is available, contains exactly one matching entry, and verifies. They also reject an archive that contains anything other than the expected top-level executable.

Manual installation¶

For a published release, download the archive for your platform and SHA256SUMS from the GitHub Releases page. Verify the archive against SHA256SUMS, extract it, and place docbank somewhere on your PATH (for example, ~/.local/bin). Release archives are named:

docbank_<version>_<goos>_<goarch>.tar.gz  # Linux and macOS
docbank_<version>_windows_<goarch>.zip    # Windows

Releases produced by the current distribution workflow publish all six archives. Earlier tags may contain fewer targets; an installer fails instead of substituting another platform. Never install an archive for a different OS or architecture.

Build and install from source¶

git clone https://github.com/kenn-io/docbank.git
cd docbank
make build      # builds ./docbank
make install    # installs to ~/.local/bin

On Windows, use a PowerShell prompt with Go and the C compiler available:

go build -tags fts5 -o docbank.exe ./cmd/docbank
go test -tags fts5 ./...

The SQLite full-text index requires the fts5 build tag; the Makefile targets set it for you. If you invoke go directly, pass it yourself:

go build -tags fts5 ./cmd/docbank
go test -tags fts5 ./...

First run¶

There is no init step. The first command you run creates the vault layout under ~/.docbank/ (database, blob directory, lock file):

docbank add ~/Desktop/some-document.pdf
docbank ls /inbox

Set DOCBANK_HOME to keep the vault somewhere else — see Configuration.

Before importing irreplaceable material, read Vault Lifecycle and decide how the vault will be snapshotted.

Verifying the toolchain¶

make test    # full test suite
make lint    # golangci-lint

Both must pass cleanly on a supported platform. If go test fails with undefined: ...fts5... errors, the fts5 tag is missing.