Quickstart

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Start a local development database and Explorer using the images on Docker Hub: ianknowles/galactus-db:latest and ianknowles/galactus-db-explorer:latest. You need Docker with Compose.

Both images support Linux ARM64 (aarch64) and Linux AMD64 (x86-64). Docker selects the image for your container host; see supported architectures.

Start the database and Explorer

Save the Compose configuration as compose.yaml in a new directory.
Create a .env file beside it and choose a local database password of at least 12 characters:

GDB_INITIAL_PASSWORD=replace-with-your-password

In that directory, start the services:

docker compose up -d
docker compose ps

The example uses the free Developer edition with two allocated CPUs, persistent storage and group commit durability. No licence key or website account is needed. Personal permits one allocated CPU. Commercial enables licensed backup and restore. See editions and licences.

Open Explorer

Visit http://127.0.0.1:7474. The connection is prefilled with bolt://db:7687, the database's address inside the Compose network.

Log in with username gdb and the password from your .env file. Select the galactus database. Applications running on your computer connect to bolt://127.0.0.1:7687; applications in the same Compose network use bolt://db:7687.

The username is gdb. Release images require a password of at least 12 characters before they start; set it explicitly in your .env file.

Create and query a graph

Paste this script into Explorer and run it. Each semicolon-delimited statement commits separately.

CREATE (a:Person {name: 'Ada', age: 36})-[:KNOWS {since: 2015}]->(b:Person {name: 'Bob'});
MATCH (a:Person)-[r:KNOWS]->(b:Person)
WHERE a.age >= 30
RETURN a.name AS who, b.name AS knows, r.since
ORDER BY who;
CREATE INDEX ON :Person(name);
MATCH (p:Person {name: 'Ada'}) RETURN p.name, p.age;

The result is Ada knowing Bob, with since equal to 2015. Rerunning CREATE adds another pair; use MERGE for get-or-create behaviour.

Stop and restart

docker compose down
docker compose up -d

Your named data volume survives these commands. Removing the volume deletes its data. See Docker deployment for upgrades and configuration.

Connect a native driver · Driver repositories · Explorer · Cypher