Sim Studio is a lightweight, user-friendly platform for building AI agent workflows.

Quick Start

Option 1: Using CLI (Recommended)

The easiest way to get started:

npx simstudio
# This will set up and run Sim Studio locally with minimal configuration

Option 2: Using Docker Compose

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/simstudioai/sim.git
cd sim

# Create environment file (update BETTER_AUTH_SECRET and ENCRYPTION_KEY with secure random values)
cp sim/.env.example sim/.env

# Start with Docker Compose
docker compose up -d --build

Once running, access the application at http://localhost:3000/w/

Option 3: Cloud Hosted Version

Visit https://simstudio.ai to use our cloud-hosted version without any setup.

Working with Local Models

Sim Studio supports integration with local LLM models:

# Pull local models
./sim/scripts/ollama_docker.sh pull <model_name>

# Start with local model support
./start_simstudio_docker.sh --local

# For systems with NVIDIA GPU
docker compose up --profile local-gpu -d --build

# For CPU-only systems
docker compose up --profile local-cpu -d --build

Connecting to Existing Ollama Instance

If you already have Ollama running locally:

# Using host networking (simplest)
docker compose up --profile local-cpu -d --build --network=host

Or add this to your docker-compose.yml:

services:
  simstudio:
    # ... existing configuration ...
    extra_hosts:
      - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    environment:
      - OLLAMA_HOST=http://host.docker.internal:11434

Development Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Docker (recommended)
• PostgreSQL (if not using Docker)

Required Environment Variables

For local development, create a .env file with these minimum variables:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:postgres@db:5432/simstudio
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=<generate_a_secure_random_value>
ENCRYPTION_KEY=<generate_a_secure_random_value>

⚠️ Note: Without RESEND_API_KEY, verification codes will be logged to the console for local testing.

Dev Container Option

1. Open in VS Code with the Remote-Containers extension
2. Click "Reopen in Container" when prompted
3. Run npm run dev or use the sim-start alias

Manual Setup

cd sim/sim
npm install
cp .env.example .env
npx drizzle-kit push
npm run dev

Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions:

• Authentication problems: Check console logs for verification codes if RESEND_API_KEY is not set
• Database connection errors: Verify PostgreSQL is running and credentials are correct
• Port conflicts: Check if port 3000 is already in use by another application

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js (App Router)
• Database: PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM
• Authentication: Better Auth
• UI: Shadcn, Tailwind CSS
• State Management: Zustand
• Flow Editor: ReactFlow
• Docs: Fumadocs

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

License

Apache-2.0

Made with ❤️ by the Sim Studio Team