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How to run your own copy of the Whirl chat app with Whirl

Clone the repo, connect Convex, Clerk, and OpenRouter, and chat with models from your own deployment.

Credentials. The setup asks you to store an OpenRouter API key and Clerk domain in Convex, so keep those values out of shared logs and commits.

Who it is forA developer who wants a private, self-run AI chat app and has the three required accounts ready.

The problemHosted chat apps keep your conversations and configuration on someone else's servers, and you cannot change how they work.

The outcomeA local Whirl instance at localhost:3000 where you can send messages to models through OpenRouter.

What you need first

  • Bun installed
  • A free Convex account
  • A Clerk application
  • An OpenRouter API key
  • Git and a terminal

Steps

  1. Run git clone https://github.com/whirlchat/whirl.git and then cd whirl.
  2. Run bun install from the repo root.
  3. Run cd packages/backend then bunx convex dev and finish the first-run project setup.
  4. In another terminal, run bunx convex env set CLERK_JWT_ISSUER_DOMAIN https://your-instance.clerk.accounts.dev and bunx convex env set OPENROUTER_API_KEY sk-or-v1-....
  5. Run cd ../../apps/v2, then cp .env.example .env.local, fill in the four required values, then run cd ../.. and bun run dev.
  6. Open localhost:3000 in a browser and send a test message.

Prompt for your agent

In the whirlchat/whirl repo, follow the Quick start in the README to run the web app locally using my Convex, Clerk, and OpenRouter values in <placeholder-env-file>. Report the URL the app is serving on and whether a test message to a model returns a reply. Verify that bun run dev starts without errors before reporting success.

Caveat. The README says the self-hosting guide covers the Clerk JWT template Convex needs, so read that guide before assuming the quick start alone is complete.

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