Documentation Overview
Scout is a self-hosted, open-source personal AI assistant that you reach from Telegram, Email (AgentMail), or the Web App (PWA).
Under the hood, Scout pairs a FastAPI backend, a React/Vite progressive web app, and a 24/7 async background worker with the Goose CLI agent runtime. It gives you scheduled background subagents, proactive reminders with escalation, long-term conversational memory, document knowledge search, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) server integrations—all running on infrastructure you control.
Choose Your Deployment Path
Section titled “Choose Your Deployment Path”| Deployment Method | Best For | Database | HTTPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud VM | Fastest setup from your browser via Cloud Shell (deploy/deploy-vm.sh) |
Persistent host-mounted SQLite | Automatic via Caddy (sslip.io or custom domain) |
| Docker Compose | Any Linux VPS, homelab server, or cloud instance | SQLite (default) or PostgreSQL (External, Bundled, or Cloud SQL) | Automatic via Caddy |
| Local Development | Contributing to Scout or testing changes locally | Local SQLite or PostgreSQL | localhost |
Documentation Sections
Section titled “Documentation Sections”- Deploy to Google Cloud: Automated setup with
./deploy/deploy-vm.sh, custom domains, pinning release versions, online backups, and zero-downtimeupgrade. - Google Cloud Free Tier & Sizing: What Google Cloud’s Always Free
e2-microallowance covers, memory/swap considerations, ephemeral IPs, and when to scale up. - Self-Hosting with Docker Compose: Running the official GHCR container image (
ghcr.io/kcthota/scout) or building from source, plus the four database options. - Channels Setup: Pairing your dedicated Telegram bot via
@BotFatherand provisioning an AgentMail inbox. - Configuration & Model Providers: Complete
.envvariable reference and how to configure Google Gemini, Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, xAI, and Ollama. - Security & Privacy Model: Single-owner lockdown, AES-256-GCM encryption at rest, SSRF protections, MCP tool isolation, and untrusted-turn memory review.
- Local Development & Migrations: Running the backend, worker, and frontend locally, plus managing Alembic database migrations.