paularlott/knot repository overview

⁠knot

Self-hosted cloud development environment orchestrator. Spin up secure, managed dev environments in seconds. Run knot as a single server or scale it across multiple servers with Docker, Podman, or Apple Containers — no extra control plane required. For enterprise scale, deploy to Nomad.

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⁠About knot

knot is an open-source platform (Apache 2.0) for managing cloud development environments — sometimes called Cloud Development Environments (CDEs) or remote dev workspaces. It gives every developer an on-demand, containerized workspace that is consistent, secure, and accessible from anywhere via browser, terminal, SSH, VS Code, or the knot desktop client.

• Any runtime — Docker, Podman, and Apple Containers side by side; templates pick one or knot chooses automatically.
• Scales flat — leaderless gossip clustering across multiple servers with no dedicated control plane. For larger fleets, deploy on Nomad.
• Spaces, templates, volumes, roles, groups, quotas — everything an operations team needs to standardize environments.
• AI & MCP built in — in-space AI assistant, skills, slash commands, and an MCP server + tools for scripting and agents.
• Browser-based dev — web terminal, Code Server, and VS Code Tunnels out of the box.
• Multi-arch images — runs on linux/amd64 and linux/arm64. The image's default command starts the server.

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⁠Documentation

Full installation, configuration, and operational guides live on the knot website so they're always up to date:

• Quick start⁠ — get a server running with Docker, Podman, or Nomad
• Configuration⁠ — knot.toml, environment variables, storage backends, ports, clustering, DNS, tunnels
• Tutorials⁠ — worked single-server and Nomad deployment examples
• Base images⁠ — curated catalog of Ubuntu, PHP, Go, Python, Node.js, MariaDB, Postgres, Valkey and more
• CLI reference⁠ — knot commands for spaces, templates, stacks, and admin
• Core vs Pro⁠ — what the commercial edition adds

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⁠Support

• Documentation: https://getknot.dev⁠
• Source code: https://github.com/paularlott/knot⁠
• Issues: https://github.com/paularlott/knot/issues⁠

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⁠License

knot is released under the Apache License 2.0.