Helical Insight is an open-source business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform. It lets teams connect to data sources, explore metadata, build ad hoc reports and dashboards, schedule deliveries, and export results — all from a modern web interface.

• Ad hoc reporting — drag-and-drop report designer with tables, charts, crosstabs, and custom visualizations
• Dashboard designer — interactive dashboards with filters and drill-down
• Metadata management — connect to JDBC, NoSQL, and middleware data sources
• Scheduling — email and automate report delivery
• Export — PDF, Excel, and other formats (Chrome-based rendering on the server)
• Administration — users, roles, plugins, and system configuration
• Instant BI — Easily ask questions in natural language to get instant visual insights. It includes the flexibility to **Bring Your Own LLM (BYOL) model.
• Canned Report - Create professional reports ideal for invoices, financial statements, compliance documents, and operational needs.

This repository contains two components:

Verify tools:

# Linux / macOS
./scripts/check-prerequisites.sh

# Windows PowerShell
.\scripts\check-prerequisites.ps1

git clone https://github.com/helicalinsight/helicalinsight.git
cd helicalinsight

cp .env.example .env   # optional — defaults work for local dev
# Windows PowerShell: Copy-Item .env.example .env
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

Prepare paths and directories:

# Linux / macOS
./scripts/setup-dev.sh

# Windows PowerShell
.\scripts\setup-dev.ps1

Backend — see server/README.md:

cd server
mvn clean package -DskipTests
# Deploy as hi-ce.war so the frontend context path matches:
# copy presentation/target/hi-ce-7.0.0.war → $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/hi-ce.war

Run ./scripts/setup-dev.sh (or .\scripts\setup-dev.ps1) before the first build to patch hi-repository paths. Database settings in persistence.xml come from Maven profiles (dev, docker, production) — use mvn clean package -DskipTests or -Denv=docker for PostgreSQL.

Frontend — see client/README.md:

cd client
npm ci --legacy-peer-deps
npm run start18
# Open http://localhost:3000

The dev proxy points at http://localhost:8080 by default.

On first startup, the backend creates two default users (password matches username):

Change these credentials immediately in any non-development environment.

Component Dockerfiles:

├── client/                  # React frontend application
├── server/                  # Java backend (Maven multi-module WAR)
│   ├── core/                # Core framework and services
│   ├── adhoc/               # Ad hoc reporting engine
│   ├── export/              # Report export (Chrome/PDF)
│   ├── scheduling/          # Job scheduling (Quartz)
│   ├── presentation/        # WAR packaging → hi-ce-7.0.0.war
│   └── hi-repository/       # System configuration and templates
├── scripts/                 # Dev setup and prerequisite checks
├── docker-compose.dev.yml   # One-command local dev stack
├── .env.example             # Environment variable template
└── README.md

Note: The WAR artifact is named hi-ce-7.0.0.war but is deployed as hi-ce.war so the Tomcat context path /hi-ce matches the React frontend.

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

See the LICENSE and LICENSE-HICL files in the repository root. If no license file is present yet, contact Helical Insight for licensing terms before redistribution.

• Website: helicalinsight.com
• Issues: GitHub Issues