Install

A self-hosted server exposes the same MCP tools as thingery.dev, with its own data. It needs Node 20 or newer and Postgres with the pgvector extension.

The npm package is published at release time and can lag behind thingery.dev by days. /healthz reports the version a server runs. For the latest features, run from source.

From the npm package

Install

mkdir my-thingery && cd my-thingery
npm install thingery

Start Postgres with pgvector

docker run -d -p 5432:5432 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=thingery pgvector/pgvector:pg16

No Docker? See Local Postgres.

Apply the schema

The schema ships with the package and is safe to re-run:

psql "postgres://postgres:thingery@localhost:5432/postgres" \
  -f node_modules/thingery/db/schema.sql

Run the server

DATABASE_URL is the only required variable:

DATABASE_URL="postgres://postgres:thingery@localhost:5432/postgres" \
PORT=3000 node node_modules/thingery/dist/index.js

The server answers at http://localhost:3000, with /mcp, /browse, /healthz and the HTTP API.

Create an account

Open http://localhost:3000/login.html and sign up. Your thg_... key is shown right after signup. Then point any MCP client at http://localhost:3000/mcp.

From source

git clone https://github.com/thingery/thingery
cd thingery
npm install
docker compose up -d db          # Postgres 16 with pgvector
cp .env.example .env
npm run db:migrate
npm run db:seed                  # a demo seller and 3 listings; prints an API key
npm run dev                      # http://localhost:3000

For a production deployment on a VPS behind Caddy, follow the deployment runbook.

Local Postgres without Docker

The schema always creates the vector extension, even in keyword-only mode. On macOS, Homebrew’s pgvector supports PostgreSQL 17 and 18:

brew install postgresql@18 pgvector
brew services start postgresql@18
psql postgres -c "CREATE ROLE thingery LOGIN PASSWORD 'thingery';" \
              -c "CREATE DATABASE thingery OWNER thingery;"
psql -d thingery -c "CREATE EXTENSION vector;"   # as the Postgres superuser

The default DATABASE_URL in .env.example matches this setup.

Run over stdio

The package also runs as a local stdio MCP server, with no web server, which clients like Claude Desktop can start themselves:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "thingery": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "thingery"],
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgres://thingery:thingery@localhost:5432/thingery",
        "THINGERY_API_KEY": "thg_YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

It needs a database with the schema applied. THINGERY_API_KEY is optional; without it the server is read-only. The key must exist in that database, so create it on that server’s /login.html or /api/signup.

Get started

Guides

MCP tools

Self-hosting

Reference

From the npm package

From source

Local Postgres without Docker

Run over stdio

​From the npm package

​From source

​Local Postgres without Docker

​Run over stdio

From the npm package

From source

Local Postgres without Docker

Run over stdio