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Before you deploy Digcrate, you need accounts with three external services and a few tools installed locally. All required services have free tiers that are sufficient for a personal or small-team instance.
1

Install Node.js 20+ and npm 10+

Digcrate requires Node.js 20 or later. Check your current version:
node --version
npm --version
If you need to upgrade, download the LTS release from nodejs.org or use a version manager like nvm:
nvm install 20
nvm use 20
2

Install Git

You need Git to clone the repository.
git --version
If Git is not installed, follow the official installation guide.
3

Create a Clerk account

Clerk handles user authentication (sign-in, sign-up, sessions).
  1. Sign up at clerk.com — the free tier is sufficient.
  2. Create a new application.
  3. From the application dashboard, copy your Publishable Key (pk_test_...) and Secret Key (sk_test_...). You will need both when configuring environment variables.
  4. Note the Webhook Secret from the Webhooks section — Digcrate uses this to sync users to Convex.
Clerk’s free tier includes up to 10,000 monthly active users and all OAuth providers.
4

Create a Convex account

Convex is the real-time database that stores sessions, messages, playlists, usage events, subscriptions, and all other application state.
  1. Sign up at convex.dev — the free tier is sufficient for most self-hosted instances.
  2. You do not need to create a project manually. Running npx convex dev during setup will create and configure one automatically.
Convex’s free tier includes 1M function calls and 1 GB database storage per month.
5

Create a Vercel account (recommended)

Vercel is the recommended deployment target. Digcrate uses Next.js App Router and serverless API routes, which deploy without any additional configuration on Vercel.
  1. Sign up at vercel.com.
  2. You can also deploy to any Node.js host that supports Next.js, but Vercel is the path with the least configuration.
Vercel’s free Hobby tier works for personal instances. Team instances with higher traffic should use a Pro plan.
6

Get an Anthropic API key

Digcrate’s agent runs on Claude. You need an Anthropic API key to power queries for free and Pro users (BYOK users supply their own keys at runtime).
  1. Sign up at console.anthropic.com.
  2. Create an API key. This becomes the PLATFORM_ANTHROPIC_KEY environment variable.
Without PLATFORM_ANTHROPIC_KEY, only users who have entered their own API key (BYOK) will be able to run queries. Free-tier and Pro users will see an error.
7

Optional: Stripe, Auth0, and other services

The following services are optional depending on which features you want to enable:
  • Stripe — Required for subscription billing (free/pro/team plans and checkout). Sign up at stripe.com.
  • Auth0 — Required for connected services (Spotify, Slack, Google Docs via Token Vault). Sign up at auth0.com.
  • Last.fm API key — For similar artists and listening stats. Get a key at last.fm/api.
  • Discogs API key — For release data and cover art. Get a key at discogs.com/settings/developers.
  • Ticketmaster API key — For concert listings. Get a key at developer.ticketmaster.com.
See Environment variables for the full list.
Once you have these accounts and tools ready, continue to Environment variables.