Veska — go live in under an hour

One AI-native platform for your whole back office:

                     ┌──────────── Caddy (auto-HTTPS) ────────────┐
   your team ──────▶ │  https://app.yourdomain.com  (admin UI)    │
   customers  ──────▶ │  https://api.yourdomain.com  (API + chat)  │
   (Slack/WhatsApp/Email)          │                              │
                     └─────────────┼──────────────────────────────┘
                                   ▼
                     Veska: CRM · Support · Finance · HR · Ops
                       (AI action agent · workflow engine)
                                   │
                        Postgres/pgvector · Redis

Replaces: a CRM + helpdesk + accounting + HRIS + ops tooling — all at once
Time to live: ~30–60 minutes
You need: a server with a public IP, a domain, Docker, and an LLM (local Ollama works)

This guide layers HTTPS + your domain on top of Veska's own deploy. The authoritative app docs are Veska's SELF_HOSTING.md.

Step 1 — Get a server

An Ubuntu 22.04+ VPS with 2 vCPU / 4 GB RAM (more if you run a local LLM). Install Docker:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh

Open ports 80 and 443.

Step 2 — Point your domain at it

Create two DNS A records at your server's IP:

app.yourdomain.com — the admin UI
api.yourdomain.com — the API (and channel webhooks)

dig +short app.yourdomain.com   # should print your server IP

Step 3 — Deploy Veska

git clone https://github.com/arunrajiah/veska.git
cd veska
cp .env.example .env

Edit veska/.env and set at minimum (see Veska's .env.example for the full list):

Your LLM provider — a hosted key, or a local Ollama endpoint for a fully private setup.
MAGIC_LINK_SECRET — a 32+ char random string: openssl rand -hex 32
MAGIC_LINK_BASE_URL — https://app.yourdomain.com

Bring it up and run migrations:

docker compose up -d
docker compose exec api node apps/api/dist/db/migrate.js

Step 4 — Add HTTPS with the Caddy overlay

From this folder (apps/veska in the ai-workforce repo):

cp .env.example .env      # set DOMAIN=app.yourdomain.com and ACME_EMAIL
docker compose --env-file .env -f caddy-compose.yml up -d

Caddy attaches to Veska's Docker network and fetches TLS certs automatically for app. and api. In ~1 minute, open https://app.yourdomain.com.

Heads-up (API URL): Veska's admin UI reads its API URL from NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL, which is set at build time (default http://localhost:3001). For a public HTTPS deployment, set it to https://api.yourdomain.com per Veska's self-hosting docs and rebuild the admin image, so the browser calls the API over HTTPS. If your Veska project folder isn't named veska, update the network name in caddy-compose.yml to <folder>_default.

Step 5 — Onboard your company

Open the admin UI and complete onboarding — describe your business in plain English and Veska configures CRM, support, finance, and HR for you. Explore the seeded demo data first if you like (pnpm seed in dev, per Veska's README).

Step 6 — Connect your channels

This is where Veska shines — your team works from chat, not dashboards. In Veska's settings, connect:

Slack — create a Slack app, enable the Events API, add the bot token/signing secret to veska/.env (see Veska's "Connecting Slack" section).
Email — forward a support/ops address into Veska.
WhatsApp / Telegram — follow the in-app channel wizards.

You're live. 🎉

Operate it

Task	Command (run in the `veska` repo)
Logs	`docker compose logs -f api admin`
Update	`git pull && docker compose pull && docker compose up -d && docker compose exec api node apps/api/dist/db/migrate.js`
Back up the database	`docker compose exec postgres pg_dump -U veska veska > veska-backup.sql`
Restart HTTPS overlay	`docker compose -f caddy-compose.yml up -d` (in `apps/veska`)

Troubleshooting

No certificate — DNS for app./api. isn't pointing at the server yet, or ports 80/443 are blocked. Check docker compose -f caddy-compose.yml logs caddy.
Caddy can't reach admin/api — the external network name must match Veska's Compose project (<folder>_default). Confirm with docker network ls.
UI loads but API calls fail — set NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com and rebuild the admin image (see the Step 4 heads-up).
App-level issues — see Veska's SELF_HOSTING.md and Discussions.

Part of AI Workforce · Covers Sales · Support · Finance · HR · Operations