murerkinn/bookshelf: self-hosted library for the ebooks you already own

A self-hosted library for the ebooks you already own. Put your EPUBs and PDFs in a folder, publish them, and read them in any browser — or on your Kobo, through the OPDS catalog.

Run it as a Cloudflare Worker over R2, or as a Node server over a directory on your own machine. Both use the same code and the same library.

📖 Full documentation

Try it in a minute

You'll need Node 24 or newer and a Unix-like system. Windows isn't supported — the sync tool looks for its image tools with which.

git clone https://github.com/murerkinn/bookshelf.git
cd bookshelf
npm install
npm run demo

npm run demo writes nine generated public-domain books into books/ — eight EPUBs and a PDF, so both readers are one click away. It downloads nothing. Then publish and run them by whichever route below.

The checked-in bookshelf.config.json points at Cloudflare R2, so npm run sync goes there unless you change it. For a local look, switch it to the filesystem provider first:

// bookshelf.config.json
{ "storage": { "provider": "fs", "directory": "shelf-data" } }

Set up your own

Put your books in books/, then pick where the library should live.

With Docker

The shortest route, and the image ships the tools that make covers.

mkdir books && cp ~/Downloads/*.epub books/
docker compose run --rm sync --create
docker compose up -d

Your shelf is on http://localhost:3000. Sync flags pass through, so docker compose run --rm sync --force works as it does locally.

Back up the library volume — it holds your published books and your reading positions. To bind-mount a host directory instead, chown it first:

chown -R 1000:1000 /srv/bookshelf

On a machine you own

No account anywhere.

// bookshelf.config.json
{ "storage": { "provider": "fs", "directory": "shelf-data" } }

npm run sync -- --create
npm run build
npm start -w @bookshelf/app

More in the filesystem provider.

On Cloudflare

You'll need a Cloudflare account. Edit bookshelf.config.json and apps/bookshelf/wrangler.jsonc so they name your bucket and Worker — if they disagree, the sync tool stops before uploading.

npx wrangler login
npm run sync -- --create
npm run deploy

More in the R2 provider.

Before you commit a library to it

There is no authentication. Anyone who can reach your shelf can download every book in it, and pick any profile while doing it. The OPDS catalog makes it machine-enumerable as well. Put it on a network you trust, or behind something that asks who's calling.

Nothing is encrypted. Your library is stored in the clear, and object keys are slugified titles — a listing of your storage names your shelf. With the filesystem provider you can keep it on an encrypted volume today.

Two devices reading one profile at once is last-write-wins.

What's missing has the full list.

Configuration

Everything else lives in bookshelf.config.json — see publishing.

Commands

All from the repository root.

npm run dev          # local dev server, against the local R2 bucket
npm run sync         # build the library and publish it
npm run build        # build every workspace
npm run check-types  # typecheck every workspace
npm run preview      # build + run the Worker locally
npm run deploy       # build + deploy to Cloudflare Workers
npm test             # the test suite
npm run lint         # biome, across the repo

npm run cf-typegen -w @bookshelf/app regenerates cloudflare-env.d.ts after you edit wrangler.jsonc.

Documentation

Published at https://murerkinn.github.io/bookshelf/.