Maurice
4.3 KiB
Demo Mode
Demo mode lets you run a public "try before you install" instance of TREK. A shared demo account is available for visitors, write operations are blocked for that account, and the database resets automatically every hour so the instance stays in a known state.
Enabling demo mode
Set DEMO_MODE=true in your environment and restart TREK. See Environment-Variables for how to set environment variables.
When demo mode is active, the login page shows a one-click "Try the demo" button. Clicking it logs the visitor in as the demo user immediately — no credentials need to be entered and no registration is required.
Demo account (auto-created on first start):
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
demo@trek.app |
|
| Password | demo12345 |
Admin account: an admin account is also seeded on first start. By default it uses username admin, email admin@trek.app, and password admin12345. You can override these at seed time with the DEMO_ADMIN_USER, DEMO_ADMIN_EMAIL, and DEMO_ADMIN_PASS environment variables (they only take effect when DEMO_MODE=true, on the first start before the database is seeded). See Environment-Variables.
What the demo user can and cannot do
The demo user account has read access to the shared trip data but the following operations are permanently blocked:
- Password change — returns 403.
- Account deletion — returns 403.
- MFA enrollment or removal — returns 403.
- File uploads — avatar uploads, trip cover uploads, and document/photo file attachments are blocked and return 403.
- All MCP write tools — create, update, and delete operations via the MCP API are blocked for the demo user.
Registration is also disabled while demo mode is active — visitors cannot create new accounts.
The admin account is unaffected and retains full access.
Hourly reset
TREK schedules an automatic hourly reset of the demo database. At each reset:
- The current
travel.dbis replaced with the saved baseline (travel-baseline.db). - The admin account's credentials (
password_hash, API keys, avatar) are re-applied on top of the restored baseline, so admin API keys and password changes survive the reset — but only whenDEMO_ADMIN_EMAILis set explicitly.
If no baseline has been saved yet, the reset is skipped and a message is logged.
The seeder defaults the admin address to admin@trek.app while the reset defaults it to admin@nomad.app, a legacy quirk that is pinned deliberately. With DEMO_ADMIN_EMAIL unset the reset looks up an address that does not exist, finds no admin row, and skips the carry-over entirely — a password change, API key or avatar set after the baseline was saved is lost on every hourly reset. Set DEMO_ADMIN_EMAIL (to admin@trek.app, for instance) if you want them to survive. Unlike the seed-time variables above, the reset reads it on every run, so setting it on an already-seeded instance and restarting is enough.
The instance-wide Maps and Unsplash keys stored in app_settings are carried across either way, so map and photo search keep working after a reset.
Saving a baseline
The baseline is the snapshot the hourly reset restores to. The admin can update it at any time:
Endpoint: POST /api/admin/save-demo-baseline
In the admin panel, a Demo Baseline card sits above the tabs while demo mode is on; its Save Baseline button calls this endpoint. The baseline captures the current state of the database, trip data, settings and encrypted API keys included, so demo features (maps, photos, weather) continue to work after each reset.
On first start with demo mode active, TREK seeds three example trips (Tokyo & Kyoto, Barcelona Long Weekend, New York City) owned by the admin and shared with the demo user, then saves the initial baseline automatically.
Limitations
- Demo mode is not for production use with real user data. The hourly reset deletes all visitor-created content.
- All demo visitors share a single account — there is no isolation between sessions.
- File uploads (photos, documents, trip covers, avatars) are disabled for the demo user.