Running the LightRAG storage stack on Apple container

Apple container is Apple's native, open-source container runtime for macOS 26 (Tahoe) on Apple Silicon. It runs each container in its own lightweight Linux VM, with no background daemon.

scripts/setup/apple-container.sh brings up the full LightRAG storage stack — PostgreSQL, Neo4j, and Milvus (standalone, with its etcd and minio sidecars) — plus the LightRAG API server, on Apple container instead of Docker Compose. LLM and embeddings are reached over normal outbound HTTPS (e.g. the OpenAI API); there is no GPU and no vLLM, so the stack runs on a CPU-only Apple Silicon Mac.

This is a development convenience for Apple Silicon users who want the production-like Postgres/Neo4j/Milvus backends without Docker Desktop. For Docker/Podman deployments, see DockerDeployment.md.

Why a script instead of a Compose file

Apple container (1.0.0) has no Docker Compose support, and several Compose features it lacks have to be reimplemented:

Prerequisites

• A clone of the repository. Every command below is run from the repo root:

  bashCopy

  git clone https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG.git
  cd LightRAG
  

• macOS 26 (Tahoe) or newer on Apple Silicon. Container-to-container networking and the container network command do not exist before macOS 26, so the stack cannot work on macOS 15 — the script refuses to run there.

• The container CLI, installed from the signed release and started once:

  bashCopy

  container system start          # accept the default kernel install when prompted
  

• Bash 4+ (macOS ships Bash 3.2). Install a modern bash and run the script with it:

  bashCopy

  brew install bash
  bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh up
  

• A .env file with your LLM/embedding provider and API key. If you do not have one yet, copy the template and edit it:

  bashCopy

  cp env.example .env
  # set LLM_BINDING / LLM_MODEL / LLM_BINDING_API_KEY and the EMBEDDING_* keys
  

  Only the LLM and embedding settings matter here (e.g. an OpenAI key on both LLM_BINDING_API_KEY and EMBEDDING_BINDING_API_KEY). Leave the storage backend variables as they are — the script overrides them to point at the Postgres / Neo4j / Milvus containers. Do not start from env.docker-compose-full, which is pre-wired for the GPU Docker stack. (make env-base can also generate a .env interactively.)

No sudo is required.

Quick start

# Start the whole stack (databases + LightRAG server)
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh up

# Databases only (run the LightRAG server on the host yourself)
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh up --no-lightrag

# See what is running
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh status

# Tail a service's logs
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh logs lightrag --follow

# Stop and remove containers (keeps data)
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh down

# Stop, remove containers AND delete all stored data
bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh down --purge

Equivalent make targets are provided (they resolve a bash 4+ interpreter for you): make apple-up, make apple-down, make apple-status, make apple-logs SVC=lightrag, make apple-restart SVC=<service>, make apple-pull. Pass script flags via SETUP_OPTS, e.g. make apple-up SETUP_OPTS=--no-lightrag or make apple-down SETUP_OPTS=--purge.

When the stack is up:

• LightRAG WebUI: http://127.0.0.1:9621/webui
• LightRAG health: http://127.0.0.1:9621/health
• Neo4j Browser / MinIO console: on the container's IP, printed by up (the host can reach the container subnet directly). To recover an IP later, re-run up (it is idempotent) or container inspect <service>.

What the stack looks like

host (macOS 26, Apple Silicon)
  └─ 127.0.0.1:9621 ──▶ [lightrag] ──┐   (--network lightrag)
                                     ├─▶ postgres   :5432   (volume lightrag_pg)
                                     ├─▶ neo4j       :7687   (volume lightrag_neo4j)
                                     └─▶ milvus      :19530  (volume lightrag_milvus)
                                            ├─▶ milvus-etcd  :2379  (volume lightrag_etcd)
                                            └─▶ milvus-minio :9000  (volume lightrag_minio)
  [lightrag] ──── outbound HTTPS ────▶ api.openai.com

Only the LightRAG server publishes a host port (127.0.0.1:9621). The databases are intentionally not published, so the stack never clashes with a Postgres already listening on the host's 5432. Each service is reached by its container IP on the lightrag network. Containers are namespaced as lightrag-<service> (e.g. lightrag-postgres), so the script never touches or reuses a same-named container from another project.

Trust boundary. This is a local, single-user development stack. The database containers are not published to a host port, but they are reachable on their vmnet IP with the default dev credentials listed under Configuration. Do not run it on a shared or multi-user machine, and override POSTGRES_PASSWORD / NEO4J_PASSWORD / MINIO_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY if others can route to the container subnet.

Images (all verified to publish a linux/arm64 manifest)

Two deviations from docker-compose-full.yml / scripts/setup/templates/:

• Postgres uses pgvector/pgvector:pg18 instead of the setup template's gzdaniel/postgres-for-rag:pg18-age-pgvector. Both publish a linux/arm64 manifest, so this is not an architecture constraint — the Apache AGE graph extension the template image adds is simply not needed here: graph storage is Neo4j and vector storage is Milvus, so Postgres only serves PGKVStorage + PGDocStatusStorage.
• Milvus uses the CPU tag milvusdb/milvus:v2.6.11, not the …-gpu tag from docker-compose-full.yml (which is amd64 + CUDA and cannot run on Apple Silicon).

Configuration

The script reads your existing host .env and never modifies it. For the containerized LightRAG server it writes a generated .apple-container.env (git-ignored) that copies your .env and overrides only the storage selection and connection endpoints:

LIGHTRAG_KV_STORAGE=PGKVStorage
LIGHTRAG_DOC_STATUS_STORAGE=PGDocStatusStorage
LIGHTRAG_GRAPH_STORAGE=Neo4JStorage
LIGHTRAG_VECTOR_STORAGE=MilvusVectorDBStorage
POSTGRES_HOST=<postgres container IP>
NEO4J_URI=neo4j://<neo4j IP>:7687
MILVUS_URI=http://<milvus IP>:19530
MILVUS_DB_NAME=lightrag

Your LLM/embedding settings (LLM_BINDING, EMBEDDING_BINDING, API keys, model names, EMBEDDING_DIM, …) are inherited unchanged. Set a real LLM API key in .env before ingesting documents or querying.

Because .apple-container.env copies your .env, it contains your real API keys. It is git-ignored, created with mode 600, left in place by down, and removed by down --purge.

Database credentials follow the precedence shell variable → value in your .env → dev default, so a password set in .env is honored (and the Postgres container is created with it). Common overrides (all optional):

Data persistence

All data lives in named volumes (lightrag_pg, lightrag_neo4j, lightrag_milvus, lightrag_etcd, lightrag_minio, lightrag_lightrag). Both the container and volume names are namespaced from LIGHTRAG_AC_PREFIX, so a second stack started with a different prefix keeps its own containers and its own storage. down removes the containers but keeps the volumes, so a later up restores your data; only down --purge deletes the volumes.

Troubleshooting

• bind(...): Address already in use — something on the host already owns 9621. Stop it (e.g. a host lightrag-server) and retry. Database ports are not published, so a host Postgres on 5432 is fine.
• A service IP changed after an individual restart — the stack is wired by IP at up time. If you restart a database on its own and its IP changes, run down then up to re-wire dependents.
• Milvus or Neo4j is killed / slow — they are memory-hungry; raise LIGHTRAG_AC_MEM_HEAVY (e.g. 8G).
• Ingestion or a query fails while /health is green — the stack is fine; the LLM/embedding call failed. Check that a real key is set on both LLM_BINDING_API_KEY and EMBEDDING_BINDING_API_KEY, and that the provider has quota/billing (OpenAI returns 429 insufficient_quota when out of credit). logs lightrag shows the exact HTTP error.
• Rerank is enabled but no rerank model is configured — this CPU stack ships no local reranker. Retrieval still works; to silence it, either set a hosted reranker (RERANK_BINDING + RERANK_MODEL + key) or pass enable_rerank=false in the query parameters.
• Inspecting a service — bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh logs <service> or container exec <service> sh.

Cleanup

bash scripts/setup/apple-container.sh down --purge   # remove containers + data
container network delete lightrag                    # remove the network (optional)