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Build AI Agents, Visually

📚 Table of Contents

• ⚡ Quick Start
• 🐳 Docker
• 👨‍💻 Developers
• 🌱 Env Variables
• 📖 Documentation
• 🌐 Self Host
• ☁️ Flowise Cloud
• 🙋 Support
• 🙌 Contributing
• 📄 License

⚡Quick Start

There are two main ways to get started with TheAnswer: local development setup and deployment on Render.

Local Development Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   # Recommended: Clone with submodules included
   git clone --recursive https://github.com/the-answerai/theanswer.git
   cd theanswer

2. Open http://localhost:3000

🐳 Docker

Docker Compose

1. Clone the Flowise project
2. Go to docker folder at the root of the project
3. Copy .env.example file, paste it into the same location, and rename to .env file
4. docker compose up -d
5. Open http://localhost:3000
6. You can bring the containers down by docker compose stop

Docker Image

1. Build the image locally:

   docker build --no-cache -t flowise .

2. Run image:

   docker run -d --name flowise -p 3000:3000 flowise

3. Stop image:

   docker stop flowise

👨‍💻 Developers

TheAnswer is built on top of Flowise and extends its functionality. The project structure is as follows:

Packages (from Flowise)

All packages inside packages/* are from the original Flowise project:

• server: Node backend to serve API logics
• ui: React frontend for Flowise
• components: Third-party nodes integrations
• embed: Embedding functionality
• embed-react: React components for embedding
• flowise-configs: Configuration files for Flowise
• api-documentation: Auto-generated swagger-ui API docs from express

Packages-Answers (TheAnswer-specific)

TheAnswer adds additional functionality through the packages-answers/* directory:

• db: Database interactions
• eslint-config-custom: Custom ESLint configuration
• experimental-prisma-webpack-plugin: Experimental Prisma plugin for Webpack
• tsconfig: TypeScript configuration
• types: Shared type definitions
• ui: TheAnswer-specific UI components
• utils: Utility functions

This structure allows TheAnswer to build upon Flowise's core functionality while adding its own features and customizations. The TheAnswer-specific packages extend and enhance the capabilities of the original Flowise project, providing additional tools for AI-powered productivity and workflow management.

Prerequisite

• Install PNPM

  npm i -g pnpm

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/the-answerai/theanswer.git

2. Go into repository folder:

   cd theanswer

3. Install all dependencies of all modules:

   pnpm install

4. Build all the code:

   pnpm build

   Exit code 134 (JavaScript heap out of memory)

   If you get this error when running the above `build` script, try increasing the Node.js heap size and run the script again:

   # macOS / Linux / Git Bash
   export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=4096"
   
   # Windows PowerShell
   $env:NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=4096"
   
   # Windows CMD
   set NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=4096

   Then run:

   pnpm build

5. Start the app:

   pnpm start

   You can now access the app on http://localhost:3000

6. For development build:

   • Create .env file and specify the VITE_PORT (refer to .env.example) in packages/ui

   • Create .env file and specify the PORT (refer to .env.example) in packages/server

   • Run:

     pnpm dev

   Any code changes will reload the app automatically on http://localhost:3000

🌱 Env Variables

Flowise supports different environment variables to configure your instance. You can specify the following variables in the .env file inside packages/server folder. Read more

📖 Documentation

You can view the Flowise Docs here

🌐 Self Host

Deploy AnswerAgent self-hosted in your existing infrastructure. We support various deployments

• AWS
• Azure
• GCP
• Render

🔐 AWS Secrets Manager Integration

For AWS deployments, AnswerAgent supports using AWS Secrets Manager to securely store the Flowise encryption key instead of environment variables.

Quick Setup

1. Create the encryption key secret:

   aws secretsmanager create-secret \
     --name FlowiseEncryptionKey \
     --secret-string 'your-secure-encryption-key-here'

2. Update an existing secret:

   aws secretsmanager put-secret-value \
     --secret-id FlowiseEncryptionKey \
     --secret-string 'your-new-encryption-key-here'

3. Add to your environment variables:

   # Flowise Encryption Key Override - AWS Secrets Manager
   SECRETKEY_STORAGE_TYPE="aws"
   SECRETKEY_AWS_REGION="us-east-1"
   SECRETKEY_AWS_NAME="FlowiseEncryptionKey"

Benefits

• Enhanced Security: Keys are encrypted at rest and in transit
• Key Rotation: Easy rotation without application restarts
• Audit Trail: Full access logging and monitoring
• IAM Integration: Fine-grained access control

For detailed AWS deployment instructions, see AWS Deployment Guide.

• Others

  • Railway

    

  • Northflank

    

  • Render

    

  • HuggingFace Spaces

    

  • Elestio

    

  • Sealos

    

  • RepoCloud

    

☁️ Flowise Cloud

Get Started with Flowise Cloud.

🙋 Support

Feel free to ask any questions, raise problems, and request new features in Discussion.

🙌 Contributing

We welcome contributions to TheAnswer! Whether you're fixing bugs, improving documentation, or proposing new features, your efforts are appreciated. Here's how you can contribute:

See Contributing Guide. Reach out to us at Discord if you have any questions or issues.

📄 License

Source code in this repository is made available under the Apache License Version 2.0.

🔑 Seeding Default Credentials

TheAnswer provides a script to automatically seed default credentials (API keys, service tokens, etc) into the Flowise database from environment variables. This is useful for setting up new environments or automating credential management.

• Safe by default: Running pnpm seed-credentials will perform a dry-run (test mode) and show what would be seeded, but will NOT write to the database.
• To actually write credentials: Use pnpm seed-credentials:write to perform the operation and insert/update credentials in the database.
• Full documentation: See scripts/seed-credentials/README.md for detailed instructions, environment variable requirements, and advanced usage.

Example:

# Test mode (safe, dry-run, default)
pnpm seed-credentials

# Production mode (actually writes credentials)
pnpm seed-credentials:write

The script supports a wide range of credential types and includes robust safety checks. For more details, troubleshooting, and environment variable examples, refer to the seed-credentials README.

🔒 Lacework Security Integration

TheAnswer supports optional Lacework FortiCNAPP Agent integration for runtime security monitoring and anomaly detection in AWS Fargate deployments.

Quick Setup

Enable Lacework:

1. Add LaceworkAccessToken=your_token_here to your copilot.{environment}.env file
2. Deploy with copilot deploy --env your-environment

Disable Lacework:

1. Remove or comment out LaceworkAccessToken from your environment file
2. Deploy with copilot deploy --env your-environment

Key Features

• Optional Integration: Controlled by presence of LaceworkAccessToken
• Graceful Fallback: Application runs normally if Lacework token is not provided
• Non-Essential Sidecar: Sidecar failure doesn't affect main application startup
• AWS Fargate Optimized: Designed for Copilot deployments

Verification

# Connect to container
copilot svc exec --env your-environment

# Check Lacework status
ps aux | grep datacollector
tail -f /var/log/lacework/datacollector.log

# Check environment variables (WARNING: Do not screenshare - contains sensitive tokens)
env | grep -i lacework

⚠️ Security Note: Never screenshare or share output from commands that display Lacework tokens.

For detailed configuration, troubleshooting, and advanced setup, see Lacework Integration Documentation.

🔒 BWS Secure Environmental Variable Integration

This project uses BWS Secure for managing environment variables across different environments.

🔐 Creating an Access Token

📍 1. Visit the Bitwarden Machine Accounts section within your Vault.

• If you login directly to https://vault.bitwarden.com, you will need to navigate to the Machine Accounts section, within the Secrets Manager. The Secrets Manager is located in the left sidebar, typically at the bottom of the page.
• If you don't have access, please refer to the BWS Secure documentation or contact your team administrator

🖱️ 2. Navigate to the Machine Accounts section, and follow these steps:

• Select the appropriate Client/Set of Machine Accounts from the list
• Click on the "Access Tokens" tab
• Click "+ New Access Token" button
• Give the token a meaningful name (e.g., "Your Name - Local Development")
• Click "Save" to generate the token

📋 3. Copy the displayed token (you won't be able to see it again after closing)

💾 4. Add it to your .env file in your project root:

BWS_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_token_here

⚠️ 5. Never commit this token to version control

🎯 Token Usage Options:

• BWS_ACCESS_TOKEN: Loads ALL projects associated with that token (recommended for multi-project setups)
• BWS_PROJECT_ID: Loads only a specific project (use for single-project or testing scenarios)

Example for single project:

BWS_PROJECT_ID=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001

The project ID can be found in the Bitwarden Secrets Manager, within the list of projects.

🔧 Common Issues & Troubleshooting:

• "No projects found": Verify your token has project access permissions in Bitwarden
• "Access denied": Check that the Machine Account has read permissions for the target projects
• Token not working: Ensure no extra spaces when copying from Bitwarden
• Multiple projects loading: This is normal with BWS_ACCESS_TOKEN - use BWS_PROJECT_ID for single project

Updating BWS Secure

To update BWS Secure to the latest version, you can use the convenient script that was added to your package.json:

npm run bws-update  # Or use your project's package manager: yarn bws-update, pnpm bws-update

Alternatively, you can run the following command manually from your project root:

rm -rf scripts/bws-secure && git clone git@github.com:last-rev-llc/bws-secure.git scripts/bws-secure && rm -rf scripts/bws-secure/.git && bash scripts/bws-secure/install.sh