Enable and configure Meilisearch

Enable and configure Meilisearch

Meilisearch is a fast search engine for local application development, useful for testing product search, documentation search, and autocomplete workflows.

How it works

Devilbox keeps optional integrations as override snippets in the compose/ directory. To enable Meilisearch, copy its snippet into the project root as docker-compose.override.yml, then start the stack.

Enable

cp compose/docker-compose.override.yml-meilisearch docker-compose.override.yml
./dvl.sh up

Configuration

The snippet defines service meilisearch with image getmeili/meilisearch:${MEILI_SERVER:-latest}, hostname meilisearch, IP 172.16.238.203, command meilisearch, host port ${HOST_PORT_MEILI:-7700}:7700, and volume devilbox-meilisearch:/meili_data.

Variable	Default	Purpose
MEILI_SERVER	latest	Meilisearch image tag.
MEILI_MASTER_KEY	empty	Master key for protected API access.
HOST_PORT_MEILI	7700	Host port for the Meilisearch API.

If MEILI_MASTER_KEY is set, include it as a bearer token in API requests.

Usage

Check service health:

curl http://localhost:7700/health

Create an index and add a document:

curl -X POST http://localhost:7700/indexes -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"uid":"books","primaryKey":"id"}'
curl -X POST http://localhost:7700/indexes/books/documents -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '[{"id":1,"title":"Devilbox local search"}]'

Search the index:

curl 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/books/search?q=devilbox'

Disable

./dvl.sh down
rm docker-compose.override.yml
./dvl.sh up

Remove the data volume if you also want to delete indexed documents:

docker volume rm devilbox-meilisearch

Troubleshooting

• If requests return unauthorized, include the MEILI_MASTER_KEY bearer token.
• If port 7700 is busy, set HOST_PORT_MEILI to another host port.
• If data persists after disabling, remove the devilbox-meilisearch volume.

See also

• Add your own Docker image
• Docker Compose override file