Creating the First Admin

Goal

Create a local admin account after a self-hosted Appaloft instance first starts, and use it to log in to the Web console and complete follow-up organization configuration.

When to use this task

You just finished installing and need to create the first account you can log in with.

Prerequisites

The Appaloft instance is installed and running normally.

Web steps

Open the console URL printed by the installer. The console checks bootstrap status and routes first-time visitors to /bootstrap/auth/first-admin — you can also open this setup path directly. If an admin already exists on the instance, this page routes you to /login instead, and won’t create another account.

CLI steps

You can pass admin info directly at install time:

curl -fsSL https://appaloft.com/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- \
  --first-admin-email [email protected] \
  --first-admin-name "Admin"

If you don’t pass --first-admin-password, the installer generates a one-time password and prints it once, right after the Appaloft container becomes healthy — save it immediately. Re-running the installer safely skips this step if an admin or organization owner already exists, and never shows the password again.

You can also supply the initial password yourself:

curl -fsSL https://appaloft.com/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- \
  --first-admin-email [email protected] \
  --first-admin-password "$APPALOFT_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD"

A container or self-hosted runtime can also automatically create the first admin at startup through environment variables:

APPALOFT_FIRST_ADMIN_EMAIL=[email protected]
APPALOFT_FIRST_ADMIN_DISPLAY_NAME=Admin
APPALOFT_FIRST_ADMIN_ORGANIZATION_NAME="Self-hosted Appaloft"
APPALOFT_FIRST_ADMIN_ORGANIZATION_SLUG=self-hosted-appaloft
APPALOFT_FIRST_ADMIN_PASSWORD="$APPALOFT_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD"

Startup bootstrap only runs automatically when both an email and a password are configured; if no password is provided, you must configure APPALOFT_BOOTSTRAP_FIRST_ADMIN_OUTPUT_FILE so the generated one-time password has a trusted output location.

You can also bootstrap through the command line:

appaloft auth bootstrap-status
appaloft auth bootstrap-first-admin --email [email protected] --display-name "Admin"

HTTP/API steps

GET /api/bootstrap/auth/status
POST /api/bootstrap/auth/first-admin

The bootstrap status endpoint is intentionally public; the creation endpoint is only usable while initial setup hasn’t completed. Once an admin or organization owner already exists, this endpoint returns 404 first_admin_bootstrap_disabled and never creates a new admin or returns a password.

Expected output and status

After logging in, Appaloft recognizes you with a user session, and protects product-level mutating operations based on organization role. A mutating request without a session returns 401 product_auth_missing; a logged-in request from a user who doesn’t belong to the target organization or lacks sufficient role returns 403 product_auth_forbidden.

Verification

Log in to the console with the configured email and password, and confirm you can see the organization home page. To end the current browser session, use Log out in the console’s top bar.

Rollback / recovery

If you forget the generated one-time password, re-running the installer won’t show the old password again — prefer using an already-logged-in admin session, or restore from a trusted backup. Don’t directly edit database user or organization records to bypass login.

If you can’t log in after installing, troubleshoot in this order:

Confirm you’re using the console URL printed by the installer, not the domain of a project resource.
Check that the first admin email matches the install input.
Check whether the installer output showed that bootstrap was skipped — if so, an admin or owner already exists on the instance.
On 401 product_auth_missing, log in again; on 403 product_auth_forbidden, confirm the current user belongs to the target organization and has an admin or owner role.

OAuth is optional

Google, GitHub, or generic OIDC login can be configured later — without the related config, OAuth login should stay disabled, but it should never block local admin login.

Complete the first login with the local admin, confirm the console works, then add these as needed:

Provider	Required configuration
GitHub	`APPALOFT_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID`, `APPALOFT_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`, `APPALOFT_GITHUB_REDIRECT_URI`
Google	`APPALOFT_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID`, `APPALOFT_GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`, `APPALOFT_GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI`
Generic OIDC	`APPALOFT_OIDC_CLIENT_ID`, `APPALOFT_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET`, `APPALOFT_OIDC_DISCOVERY_URL`, `APPALOFT_OIDC_REDIRECT_URI`

The browser console origin must be configured as a trusted source via APPALOFT_WEB_ORIGIN. See Runtime Configuration Reference for the full variable description.