Install

This page gets a single Ursula node running on your machine so you can try the API. There are two ways to do it:

Pick	When
Docker	You just want to try Ursula. One command, no toolchain.
Build from source	You want local binaries, plan to hack on Ursula, or can't run Docker.

Both start the same in-memory, non-replicated node on port 4437. Nothing is persisted across restarts. For a production cluster, see Deploy a Cluster.

Docker

Every release publishes a multi-arch image to GHCR:

docker run --rm -p 4437:4437 ghcr.io/tonbo-io/ursula:0.3.6

The image runs as a non-root user and contains both ursula (the server) and ursulactl (the operator CLI). Images are published only by the reviewed stable-release workflow, so pin the version you want to run.

Build from source

You need rustup, a C compiler, and pkg-config. The repository pins the toolchain in rust-toolchain.toml, so rustup selects the right nightly automatically.

Installing the prerequisites (macOS, Debian/Ubuntu)

On macOS:

brew install rustup pkg-config
rustup-init -y

On Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential pkg-config curl
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Clone, build, and start the server:

git clone https://github.com/tonbo-io/ursula.git
cd ursula
cargo build --release -p ursula -p ursula-ctl
./target/release/ursula server

The server is now listening on 127.0.0.1:4437. The build also produces target/release/ursulactl, the operator CLI you will use once a cluster is up.

Verify

With the node running, from another terminal:

curl http://127.0.0.1:4437/__ursula/metrics

A JSON snapshot of runtime state means the node is up.

Quick Start: create streams, append, replay, and tail live over SSE
Deploy a Cluster: the production three-voter shape with OpenTofu + Helm
Configuration: persistence, presets, and S3 cold storage

Docker

Build from source

Verify

Next