Conceptual questions
Does Orbit have a public API?
Does Orbit have a public API?
Not today — see Known Limitations.
What's the difference between the admin role and being a member?
What's the difference between the admin role and being a member?
Less than you’d expect — see Known Limitations.
Can I view a history of changes made to a project?
Can I view a history of changes made to a project?
Not through the UI yet — see Known Limitations.
Can I change my email, password, or avatar after signing up?
Can I change my email, password, or avatar after signing up?
Name, password, and avatar — yes, from Settings → Account. Email address — not today. See Known Limitations.
Why didn't my first registered account become admin?
Why didn't my first registered account become admin?
The admin role only goes to the very first account in an empty
users table. If you’re testing this and it didn’t happen, you likely registered against a database that already had a user in it — reset with php artisan migrate:fresh (or make fresh in Docker) and register again on a clean database.Setup issues
Blank page or 500 error right after cloning the repo
Blank page or 500 error right after cloning the repo
This almost always means one of the setup steps was skipped: copying
.env.example to .env, generating an app key (php artisan key:generate), or running migrations. Re-run composer setup (native) or make setup (Docker) — see Quickstart.Frontend assets or styles look broken / missing
Frontend assets or styles look broken / missing
Make sure you’ve actually run a frontend build (
npm run build) or have the Vite dev server running (npm run dev, or composer dev / make dev which start it alongside the backend). Orbit’s pages expect Vite-built assets to be present — the app won’t render correctly with a .env set up but no frontend build.Vite hot reload stopped working (Docker)
Vite hot reload stopped working (Docker)
See the dedicated troubleshooting note in the Docker guide — this is a known issue with the file watcher desyncing, especially on non-native storage.
Wrong PHP or Node version
Wrong PHP or Node version
Orbit needs PHP 8.5+ and Node.js 22+. If
composer setup or npm install fails with dependency resolution errors, check your local versions before assuming it’s a project bug.Email notifications aren't arriving
Email notifications aren't arriving
Two separate things have to be true:
MAIL_MAILER must point at a real driver (it defaults to log, which just writes to a log file instead of sending), and a queue worker must be running, since notification emails are always queued. See Configuration and the Docker services list for the queue container.