Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js
• Yarn
• Docker (recommended if you plan to use happier-server full flavor)
• Tailscale (optional, but recommended for phone/remote access)

Install and initialize

hstack can be run either:

• as an installed CLI (recommended once published), or
• via npx (good for one-off setup), or
• from a local checkout (maintainers / when the npm package isn’t published yet).

Guided setup (recommended)

Development profile (recommended for contributors):

hstack setup --profile=dev

Self-host profile (stable / production-ish):

curl -fsSL https://happier.dev/self-host | bash

Direct hstack flow (same guided installer):

hstack self-host install

Enable auto-updates (opt-in) at install time:

hstack self-host install --auto-update --auto-update-at=03:15

You can also update the schedule after install:

hstack self-host config set --auto-update --auto-update-at=03:15

Legacy alias (still supported):

hstack setup --profile=selfhost

Choose a workspace directory

The workspace is where hstack stores:

• main/ (stable checkout; treat as read-only)
• dev/ (dev branch checkout for development)
• categorized worktrees:
  • pr/…
  • local/<owner>/…
  • tmp/<owner>/…

You can set it explicitly:

hstack setup --profile=dev --workspace-dir=~/Documents/Development/happier

Or by env var:

export HAPPIER_STACK_WORKSPACE_DIR=~/Documents/Development/happier

Developing hstack itself (local CLI root)

When you’re iterating on the hstack source code inside the monorepo, you can point the installed shim at your local checkout:

export HAPPIER_STACK_CLI_ROOT_DIR=~/Documents/Development/happier/dev/apps/stack
hstack help

To confirm what hstack is actually using on your machine, run:

hstack where