Fray

Multi-persona group chat where AI personas with distinct personalities debate, brainstorm, and build on each other's ideas. Bring your own API key via OpenRouter, or run local models with Ollama.

Stack

• Frontend: Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn/ui
• Database: Postgres with Prisma ORM
• Auth: AWS Cognito
• LLM: BYOK via OpenRouter + local models via Ollama
• Web search: Self-hosted SearXNG
• Containers: Podman + podman-compose

Local Development

cp .env.example .env
# Fill in ENCRYPTION_KEY and Cognito values

# Start Postgres and SearXNG
podman-compose -p fray up db searxng -d

# Run migrations and seed
npx prisma migrate dev
npx prisma db seed

# Start dev server
npm run dev

App runs at http://localhost:3000.

Production Deployment

Fray runs on a single EC2 instance (Fedora) with Caddy for auto-SSL.

First-time setup

1. Launch a Fedora EC2 instance with ports 22, 80, 443 open
2. Point your domain's A record at the instance IP
3. SSH in and run setup.sh, then fill in .env
4. Build and start:

podman-compose -f podman-compose.prod.yml build
podman-compose -f podman-compose.prod.yml run --rm app npx prisma migrate deploy
podman-compose -f podman-compose.prod.yml run --rm app npx prisma db seed
podman-compose -f podman-compose.prod.yml up -d

Deploying updates

./deploy.sh -i ~/.ssh/fray.pem fedora@your-ec2-ip

Pulls latest code, rebuilds containers, runs migrations, and restarts.

Environment Variables

See .env.example for the full list. Key variables:

Variable	Purpose
ENCRYPTION_KEY	AES-256-GCM key for stored API keys
NEXT_PUBLIC_COGNITO_USER_POOL_ID	Cognito user pool
NEXT_PUBLIC_COGNITO_CLIENT_ID	Cognito app client
DOMAIN	Production domain for Caddy auto-SSL
POSTGRES_USER / POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Production DB credentials