Documentation

HOW TO RUN YOUR OWN.

Placeholder · the real documentation is being written

This page is the outline of the ReportLog documentation, with the sections in the order a new operator meets them. The headings are real. The text under them is a placeholder and will be replaced as each part of the software settles.

Documentation

Outline, 13 September 2026

What ReportLog is

Start here

ReportLog is open source software for running an archive of incident reports that cannot be quietly altered, including by the people running it. This section will say what the software does, what it does not do, and who it is for.

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Before you install

Requirements

What you need to have ready: a server, a domain, a mail sender, and the decisions you have to make before the first command rather than halfway through.

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Install

Step by step

Every command here will be ready to paste, with the expected output next to it and a plain statement of what would mean stop.

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First-run setup

Operator account and template

Creating the operator account, setting the separate confirmation password required for anything that cannot be undone, and choosing the template the instance starts from.

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Test mode and going live

One-way door

A new instance runs in test mode, which publishes nothing externally. Going live clears the test data, resets the chain, and cannot be reversed. This section will spell out exactly what is kept and what is cleared.

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Roles and permissions

Who can do what

Group moderator, group leader, archive moderator, archive admin, and the access manager whose only power is granting and revoking roles.

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Organizations and groups

Self-service

How a group is created, how reports get attached to one, and how a group moderates and exports its own reports.

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Moderation

The approval path

What a moderator sees, what a moderator decides, and what is written down every time they do.

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Visibility and release

The ceiling

The reporter sets the maximum visibility at intake. Everyone downstream can lower it and nobody can raise it. Release can never exceed the ceiling, and nothing is public until a moderator approves it.

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Proofs and verification

Checking the record

What the proof bundle contains, how somebody outside the archive verifies it without trusting the operator, and what a failed check actually means.

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Backups, updates, maintenance

Keeping it running

Backups that are worth having, how to take an update, and what to check afterwards.

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Troubleshooting, by symptom

When something is wrong

Organized by what you are seeing, not by what part of the system caused it.

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Known limitations, precisely

Note

What this documentation does not settle. This section stays on the page and gets longer, not shorter, because the honest list is the useful one.

1. The documentation is placeholder text. Nothing on this page can be followed yet.

2. The source is not published, so nothing here can be checked by reading it.

3. Several parts of the software described above are still being changed, and the pages will be written once they settle.

Documentation in progress.

Gaps? Tell us.