First Run

When you first open Alchemist at http://localhost:3000 the setup wizard runs automatically. It takes about two minutes. Until the first account is created, setup is reachable only from the local network.

Wizard steps

1. Admin account — Set a username and password. Telemetry is opt-in and off by default.

2. Library selection — Add the server folders Alchemist should scan. In Docker these are the container-side paths (right side of your volume mount). If you mounted /mnt/media as /media, enter /media here.

Alchemist auto-discovers likely media roots and shows them as suggestions. Add any path manually or browse the server filesystem.

3. Processing settings — Target codec (AV1 default), quality profile, output rules. Defaults are sensible. Everything is changeable later.

4. Hardware, notifications & schedule — GPU detection is automatic. You can pin a vendor, configure a basic notification target, and restrict encoding to schedule windows. More notification providers and quiet hours are in Settings → Notifications after setup.

5. Review & complete — Summary of all choices. Click Complete Setup to write the config and start the first library scan.

After setup

The engine starts paused after setup. Click Start in the header bar to begin processing.

The initial scan runs automatically in the background and queues matching files. The engine still starts paused; click Start when you are ready for queued work to process.

Resetting

To fully reset and re-run the wizard:

just db-reset-all

Next

• Quick Start — start the engine and watch the first jobs run.
• Alchemist for Jellyfin — if this library feeds a Jellyfin server.
• Hardware Acceleration — confirm your GPU is the active backend.