Updating

New llama-dash builds are published from the main branch. The System page shows when your running commit is behind main. Database migrations run automatically when llama-dash starts, so updating means fetching the new version and restarting.

Your data is kept across updates:

• .env and config/config.yaml are ignored by Git, so git pull does not overwrite them.
• The database lives in the llama-dash-data Docker volume, or at DATABASE_PATH (default data/dash.db) in a manual setup.

Docker Compose

Run these commands from your llama-dash checkout. Use the Compose file you started with.

git pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.amd.yaml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.amd.yaml up -d

git pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.nvidia.yaml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.nvidia.yaml up -d

• git pull updates the Compose files and example config. It can fail if you edited a tracked file such as the Compose file; move local changes into .env where possible, or commit them on a local branch.
• pull fetches the latest llama-dash image and the latest llama-swap image. llama-swap rebuilds its unified-* images nightly from the latest upstream sources, so this also updates llama-server.
• up -d recreates only the containers whose image or configuration changed.

Remove old images afterwards with docker image prune.

Pinning versions

To stay on a known llama-dash build, set LLAMA_DASH_IMAGE_TAG in .env to a published image tag, such as a sha- commit tag. Compose reads this value when it resolves the image. pull and up -d then keep that build until you change the tag.

The llama-swap image tag is set in the Compose file. To pin llama-swap and llama.cpp, replace the floating tag with a fixed one from llama-swap's image list: a release tag such as unified-cuda13-268, or a nightly build such as unified-vulkan-2026-10-31.

Backing up the database

The database uses SQLite WAL mode, so copy the whole /data directory while llama-dash is stopped:

docker compose -f docker-compose.amd.yaml stop llama-dash
docker compose -f docker-compose.amd.yaml cp llama-dash:/data ./llama-dash-backup
docker compose -f docker-compose.amd.yaml start llama-dash

Manual setup

From your checkout, for example /opt/llama-dash:

git pull
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm build
sudo systemctl restart llama-dash

Run these as the account that owns the checkout. Check that the service started with sudo systemctl status llama-dash. To stay on a specific build, check out that commit instead of pulling main.

To back up the database, stop the service and copy the directory that holds data/dash.db (or your DATABASE_PATH), including any -wal and -shm files, before you restart it.

llama-swap and llama.cpp

In a manual setup, llama-swap and llama.cpp update separately from llama-dash:

• llama-swap: run brew upgrade llama-swap, or replace the binary with a newer release, then restart llama-swap.
• llama.cpp: update llama-server the same way you installed it, through your package manager, a newer release binary, or a rebuild from source. llama-swap uses the new binary the next time it starts a model; unload running models from the Models page to pick it up immediately.

llama-dash talks to llama-swap over its HTTP API, so you can update each component independently.