Reference
The instruction manual for Storyden. Print it out and staple it together!
In this section you'll find various reference documentation for all of Storyden's features and systems.
Use it to look up configuration options, system behaviour, supported backends, and other factual details.
In this section
Configuring Storyden
There are two ways to customize Storyden to your needs:
Configuration
Environment variables passed to the application at startup time. The kinds of things under configuration don't change very often once set, so they require a restart to take effect.
Settings
Runtime settings you can change via the administration menu inside the app itself. These are stored in the database and can be changed at any time without a restart.
Data Management
Database Choice
Pick from a handful of databases based on your needs.
Search Providers
Search providers, configuration and comparisons.
Operation of a Storyden Instance
Storyden is designed to be simple to operate compared to traditional forum software. There's no complex web-based setup wizard, no manual database migrations, and no tangled web of configuration files scattered across the filesystem. Storyden is designed with ephemeral cloud-based infrastructure in mind, while maintaining a sane setup for traditional stateful server environments.
Infrastructure configuration follows 12-factor app principles using environment variables for settings that rarely change after initial setup - things like database URLs, API keys, and service endpoints. This makes Storyden straightforward to deploy anywhere from a single VPS to containerized cloud environments.
Meanwhile, community settings you'll want to experiment with - like rate limits, feature toggles, and appearance options - live in the admin UI where you can adjust them without restarting anything.
Processes
Storyden runs as a single binary process that can optionally launch the frontend alongside it. This makes deployment dead simple - no complex multi-service orchestration required unless you choose to add optional enhancements like Redis caching or external databases.
The platform is built with zero mandatory service dependencies. Everything needed for a production deployment is built in: SQLite for the database, local disk for file storage, in-process memory for caching, and Go channels for message queuing. You can add external services as you scale, but they're not required to get started.