Documentation

Getting Started

This guide gets a full MetaLoom stack running locally in a few minutes using the demo container. No build tools or configuration files are required.

What You Will Run

The demo image (metaloom/loom-demo) bundles everything in one container:

Loom UI — the browser interface you will spend your time in: chat, assets, pipelines and administration, served at /ui/ by the server itself. This is the front door.
Loom — the asset management server behind it (REST API, WebSocket and the UI, all on port 8092)
Loom App — an optional desktop client built with Electron, wrapping the same UI

For the full set of images and their ports, see Container Images.

Prerequisites

Docker and Docker Compose installed
A terminal

Start the Demo Stack

The metaloom/loom-demo image bundles Loom together with a pre-seeded PostgreSQL database and a set of sample assets so you can explore the system without any manual setup.

docker run -d \
  --name loom-demo \
  -p 8092:8092 \
  metaloom/loom-demo:latest

Open the Loom UI

`http://localhost:8092/ui/`

Log in with admin / finger. The demo database is pre-seeded, so every screen has real content from the first click.

Screenshot tour Chat & AI Agent Assets Pipeline editor Administration

The UI is the front door to everything the server can do — you do not need the REST API to get started. You land on the AI assistant; the asset browser, pipeline editor, tags, face detection and the admin area are one click away in the navigation.

Browse, search and preview the seeded media in the asset area:

Key areas of the UI:

Section	Purpose
Chat & AI Agent	Ask questions about your assets in natural language (the landing page)
Assets	Browse, search, upload and preview media assets
Pipelines	Author pipelines in the editor and watch runs execute live
Users & Groups	Create and manage user accounts, group memberships and role assignments
API Keys	Generate and revoke long-lived API tokens (see Authentication)
Settings	Server configuration and system status

Section

Purpose

Chat & AI Agent

Ask questions about your assets in natural language (the landing page)

Assets

Browse, search, upload and preview media assets

Pipelines

Author pipelines in the editor and watch runs execute live

Users & Groups

Create and manage user accounts, group memberships and role assignments

API Keys

Generate and revoke long-lived API tokens (see Authentication)

Settings

Server configuration and system status

For a screenshot tour of every area, see Loom UI.

Credentials

Field Value

Field	Value
Username	`admin`
Password	`finger`

Username

admin

Password

finger

(The password is set by LOOM_INITIAL_PASSWORD, which the demo image defaults to finger.)

The server itself — REST API, WebSocket and SSE — is on http://localhost:8092 for when you want to integrate rather than click.

Loom App

Loom App is a desktop application built with Electron. It embeds the Loom UI inside a native window and adds OS-level integrations:

System tray icon with quick access to the connected server
Native file drag-and-drop for asset ingestion
Local connection profiles for managing multiple Loom servers

Download the latest release from the Loom App releases page or build from source.

To connect Loom App to the demo instance, launch the app and point it at http://localhost:8092.

Next Steps

Once the stack is running and you can log in:

Explore the REST API — REST API Reference
Understand the authentication model — Authentication
Read how Cortex processes assets — Operation
Deploy to production — Loom Artifacts, Helm Chart

Looking for something else?

All documentation Feature overview