Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.13 or later
• PostgreSQL 14 or later
• uv package manager (recommended) or pip

Setup

Clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/itsnisuxyz/garden-cms.git
cd garden-cms
uv sync

Database

Create a PostgreSQL database:

createdb garden

Run migrations:

uv run piccolo migrations forwards db
uv run piccolo migrations forwards user
uv run piccolo migrations forwards session_auth

Environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/garden
SECRET_KEY=change-me-to-a-random-string

See Configuration for the full list of environment variables.

Start the server

uv run litestar run --reload

The admin interface is available at http://localhost:8000/admin. On first run, Garden CMS seeds the database with a default theme, sample pages, and two collections (Blog and Projects).

Admin password

Set the ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable to enable password login:

ADMIN_PASSWORD=your-password

Alternatively, configure OAuth authentication for SSO.