FAQ

Is Forge actually free?

Yes — Apache 2.0, self-hosted, no seat licence. You provide the hardware and the operating effort. See the LICENSE.

What state is it in?

Public beta (1.0.0-beta.*). The quote-to-cash chain works end to end. APIs and schema still move between betas, and upgrades are expected to go through the forge-deploy reconcile path rather than by hand.

Do I need QuickBooks?

No, and you don't have to give it up either. Forge runs in integrated mode with QuickBooks Online (or Xero, FreshBooks, Sage, NetSuite, Wave, Zoho) as the book of record, or standalone with its own invoicing, payments and AR — and there's a native double-entry GL behind a capability for shops that want to keep their books entirely in Forge. See Accounting Modes.

What hardware do I need?

A 64-bit box with Docker: ~4 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB+ recommended. ARM is fully supported — a Raspberry Pi 4/5 is a legitimate deployment target, and all images are multi-arch. See Installation.

Can I run it on Windows?

Yes, via WSL2 — that's the supported path and it gets the full toolchain. Native PowerShell works for developer source-builds only; the forge-deploy CLI is bash and needs Linux paths.

Why can't I pull the images anonymously?

The ghcr.io/armoryworks/* packages require a GitHub token with the read:packages scope. Create a PAT and docker login ghcr.io. Details in Installation.

I installed it and half the features are missing.

That is almost certainly working as designed. Forge ships every feature in one binary and turns on a subset per install, chosen by a preset or the discovery wizard. An admin can toggle individual capabilities. See Capability Gating.

Why does /accounting redirect me to the dashboard?

The general ledger is behind CAP-ACCT-FULLGL, which is off by default and cannot be enabled for a book until that book's opening balances are posted. That gate is deliberate — see Accounting Modes.

How do I change the database schema?

Not with EF Core migrations — there aren't any. The schema is desired-state SQL in forge-db, reconciled with pg-schema-diff. The API provisions a fresh database and is a no-op on an existing one, so a stale dev volume will not self-heal; reconcile it with the forge-db harness. See Architecture.

My API container crash-loops with "relation … does not exist".

Classic stale-volume symptom, and the direct consequence of the answer above. Reconcile the database with forge-db rather than restarting and hoping.

Can I split the UI, API and database across machines?

Yes. Single-node is the default; the deploy toolchain supports split topologies without a Kubernetes commitment. See the forge-deploy README.

Does the AI assistant phone home?

No. The optional AI runs on local Ollama with pgvector for retrieval, in your own stack. It's profile-gated — if you don't enable it, the container doesn't run.

Does it work offline on the floor?

There is a PWA layer with a service worker, an IndexedDB cache and an offline action queue that syncs when the connection returns. See offline.md.

How do workers log in on the floor?

By badge. Tier 1 is an RFID/NFC tap plus a PIN, tier 2 a barcode scan plus a PIN; passwords are the desktop path. Admins never see or set a worker's password or PIN — they issue a setup token and the worker sets their own.

Where do I report a bug?

In the repo that owns the code — see the table on Home. Cross-cutting design questions go on the umbrella repo.

Where's the authoritative documentation?

docs/ in the umbrella repo, versioned alongside the code. This wiki maps it; it doesn't replace it. If the two disagree, the repo wins. See Documentation Map.