Local deployment
Run Cradle Server on your own computer — one command, bound to localhost.
Everything on one machine: cradle-server runs on your computer and the console
on opencradle.ai connects to it (topology T0). The step-by-step path, with
screenshots, is Run Cradle on your machine;
this page is the install command and the settings behind it.
[one machine]
console (browser) ──API──► cradle-server (local GPU/CPU)Install
You need Node 22, pnpm and curl (macOS or Linux). Rootless — nothing is written outside your home directory:
curl -fsSL https://download.opencradle.ai/cradle-cli/latest/cradle-cli-install.sh | CRADLE_BIND=127.0.0.1 sh
~/.local/bin/cradle-server --data-dir ~/.local/share/cradle/data --port 31416 --bind 127.0.0.1The installer unpacks into ~/.local/share/cradle, bootstraps the database and
saves the admin API key to ~/.local/share/cradle/data/client-credentials.json.
The installer binds to 0.0.0.0 unless you set CRADLE_BIND=127.0.0.1 as above.
Where a systemd user session exists, the installer also starts the server as a
service, and the second line then reports that the port is already in use.
Local requests need the key too: paste it into the console when you press Connect on the This computer card.
Settings
| Variable / flag | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
--port | 31416 | HTTP API port |
--data-dir | ~/.cradle | database, models, admin key |
CRADLE_BIND / --bind | 127.0.0.1 | CRADLE_BIND=0.0.0.0 opens the server to your LAN |
To expose it beyond the LAN, bind to 0.0.0.0 and put a reverse proxy (Caddy or
nginx) in front for HTTPS — see remote-server deployment.
When to move off local
A local deployment is enough for a single operator and modest message volumes — the bottleneck is the model on the GPU, not the embedded SQLite database. Move to a dedicated GPU server when you need a shared box multiple clients connect to, or to a datacenter service when you need per-tenant isolation.
RAG and knowledge bases
How Cradle grounds agent replies in your own documents — chunking, embedding, retrieval, citations, and web crawl.
Remote server (closed networks)
Deploy cradle-server on a remote host in a closed network, operator-driven through a jump host, and distribute credentials to clients.