jubnl
4.2 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
This is available in the admin panel. The baseline captures the current state of the database — including trip data, settings, and encrypted API keys — 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.