Typesense

What is Typesense?

Typesense is a fast, typo-tolerant open-source search engine and a drop-in Laravel Scout driver. It's designed to be simple to run and tune compared to Elasticsearch, with sensible defaults for instant, as-you-type search.

Start Typesense

docker compose up -d typesense

Stop Typesense

docker compose stop typesense

This stops the container without deleting its data (kept under DATA_PATH_HOST/typesense). To remove the container: docker compose rm -f typesense.

Configuration

All settings live in typesense/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
TYPESENSE_VERSION	30.2	Image tag from the typesense/typesense Docker Hub image.
TYPESENSE_HOST_PORT	8108	Host-side port Typesense is published on (container port 8108).
TYPESENSE_API_KEY	typesense	API key required on every request; change it for anything beyond local dev.
TYPESENSE_ENABLE_CORS	true	Whether to allow cross-origin requests, useful when calling the API directly from a browser-based frontend.

Connect

The API is available at http://localhost:8108. Check it's up with:

curl http://localhost:8108/health

Every request needs the API key, sent as the X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY header. From another container use http://typesense:8108.

Common issues

• 401 on every request. Missing or wrong X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY header, check it matches TYPESENSE_API_KEY.
• Browser requests blocked by CORS. Confirm TYPESENSE_ENABLE_CORS=true (the default) if you're calling the API directly from frontend JavaScript rather than through your backend.
• API key changes don't take effect. Restart the container after changing TYPESENSE_API_KEY in .env: docker compose up -d typesense.
• App can't connect but the container is running. Use the container name typesense, not localhost, from inside another container.

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Prefer a search engine with a broader plugin ecosystem? See Elasticsearch or MeiliSearch. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.