system4us/salamandr-backend repository overview

⁠Salamandr — Self-Hosted Support Ticket & Customer Helpdesk

The modern, privacy-first, self-hosted omnichannel customer support platform you actually own.

Salamandr is a high-performance open-source alternative to Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and osTicket. It combines a high-throughput Go (Golang) backend, PostgreSQL (with pgvector & Row-Level Security), Redis, and an embedded React web interface in a single container.

• 🌐 Documentation: system4us.github.io/salamandr-website⁠
• 💻 Source Code: github.com/system4us/salamandr⁠
• 📦 Helm Chart (Artifact Hub): artifacthub.io/packages/helm/salamandr/salamandr⁠
• 📜 License: AGPL-3.0

⁠⚡ Why Teams Switch to Salamandr

⁠🚀 Quickstart (Docker Compose)

Get a production-grade Salamandr helpdesk running in under 2 minutes:

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  backend:
    image: system4us/salamandr-backend:community
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      - APP_DOMAIN=helpdesk.example.com
      - FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:8080
      - BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:8080
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://salamandr_app:AppSecretPass123!@postgres:5432/salamandr?sslmode=disable
      - MIGRATIONS_DATABASE_URL=postgres://salamandr:AdminSecretPass123!@postgres:5432/salamandr?sslmode=disable
      - REDIS_URL=redis://:RedisSecretPass123!@redis:6379/0
      - SESSION_SECRET=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
      - ENCRYPTION_KEY=dGhpcy1pcy1hLXNhbXBsZS1lbmNyeXB0aW9uLWtleS0zMndheXM=
      - [email protected]
      - ADMIN_PASSWORD=ChangeThisAdminPassword123!
    volumes:
      - attachments_data:/data/attachments
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_healthy

  worker:
    image: system4us/salamandr-worker:community
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://salamandr_app:AppSecretPass123!@postgres:5432/salamandr?sslmode=disable
      - MIGRATIONS_DATABASE_URL=postgres://salamandr:AdminSecretPass123!@postgres:5432/salamandr?sslmode=disable
      - REDIS_URL=redis://:RedisSecretPass123!@redis:6379/0
      - ENCRYPTION_KEY=dGhpcy1pcy1hLXNhbXBsZS1lbmNyeXB0aW9uLWtleS0zMndheXM=
    volumes:
      - attachments_data:/data/attachments
    depends_on:
      - backend

  postgres:
    image: pgvector/pgvector:pg16
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: salamandr
      POSTGRES_USER: salamandr
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: AdminSecretPass123!
      APP_DB_PASSWORD: AppSecretPass123!
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U salamandr -d salamandr"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: exec redis-server --appendonly yes --requirepass RedisSecretPass123!
    volumes:
      - redis_data:/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "-a", "RedisSecretPass123!", "ping"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

volumes:
  attachments_data:
  postgres_data:
  redis_data:

⁠Run and Access

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f backend

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser and sign in with [email protected] / ChangeThisAdminPassword123!.

⁠⚙ Environment Variables Reference

⁠✨ Comprehensive Feature Suite

⁠1. Omnichannel Unified Inbox

• Two-way Email: IMAP polling + SMTP sending with threading, spam blacklist, and strict DKIM/SPF sender validation.
• WhatsApp Cloud API: Native integration with 24-hour service window handling and Meta message templates (BYO Meta App).
• Website Live Chat Widget: Lightweight embeddable widget with real-time Server-Sent Events (SSE), visitor presence, and typing indicators.
• ChatOps Mirrors: Real-time ticket mirroring into Slack, Mattermost, Discord, and Zulip channels.

⁠2. Air-Gapped Local AI & Document RAG

• Connect your own local Ollama instance (bge-m3 embeddings + qwen2.5-coder / gemma2).
• Ingest PDF runbooks, technical documentation, and spreadsheets into PostgreSQL pgvector.
• Support agents receive instant, cited answer recommendations inside the composer with 100% data privacy.

⁠3. Service Management & SLAs

• Multi-Metric SLA Engine: Track First Response, Next Response, and Full Resolution deadlines independently.
• Operational business hours calendars, timezone offsets, holiday schedules, and auto-pause on customer-waiting states.
• Automated condition-based routing rules and skill-based ticket assignment.
• Time tracking, billable hours auditing, collision detection, and reply locks.

⁠4. Sandboxed WebAssembly Plugins (WASM)

• Extend ticket sidebars and trigger automated workflows with sandboxed WASM plugins.
• Built-in connectors for Jira, GitHub Issues, Linear, Trello, Asana, Redmine, HubSpot, Zabbix, WooCommerce, and Shopify.

⁠5. Config-as-Code CLI (salamandrctl)

• Manage SLAs, teams, routing rules, canned responses, and webhooks declaratively from JSON files via CI/CD using system4us/salamandrctl⁠.

⁠🏷 Container Images & Architectures

⁠🛡 Zero Telemetry Guarantee

Salamandr contains zero tracking pixels, zero analytics beacons, and zero phone-home mechanisms. Your database, conversations, and customer data remain 100% under your custody.

⁠📖 Links & Community

• Website: salamandr.org⁠
• Documentation: Documentation Portal⁠
• GitHub Repository: system4us/salamandr⁠
• Helm Chart: Artifact Hub⁠
• Issue Tracker: GitHub Issues⁠