First run

The first time you open Adminium it runs a four-step wizard instead of the app. Nothing has been created yet at this point: the whole wizard is a set of answers, and the last step is what executes them.

1 · Where your data lives

Pick the directory Adminium will keep everything in — the meta store, any local SQLite databases it creates, and automatic backups. The default sits next to the app’s own config (~/Library/Application Support/Adminium/data on macOS, %APPDATA%\Adminium\data on Windows, ~/.config/Adminium/data on Linux).

You can put it anywhere you have write access, with one caveat the wizard will raise as a blocking warning:

Cloud-synced folders

Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive and Google Drive sync files by copying them out from under whatever has them open. SQLite does not survive that: a synced data directory corrupts eventually, not immediately, which is the worst way for it to happen. If you choose one, Adminium makes you confirm it explicitly.

Changing this directory relaunches the app, because the background server process is started with the directory frozen into its environment. That is why the wizard commits the choice on Continue rather than the moment you pick.

2 · What Adminium builds from

Four sources:

Create a new local database	A SQLite file inside your data directory. Start blank, or from a schema file (SQL, Prisma, Drizzle, Rails, Django, the JSON IR, …), optionally with placeholder rows so there is something to look at
Open an existing SQLite file	Point at a .sqlite you already have
Connect to a server database	PostgreSQL or MySQL, by connection string
Explore the demo database	A seeded database that ships with the app, for looking around

Nothing is created yet — this step records a choice. It has to: every endpoint that could create a database is behind system:connections:manage, and on a fresh install there is no account to hold that permission. Which is the next step.

3 · Your account

Name, email, password. This creates the super admin.

“Skip login on this computer” is checked by default. With it on, opening the app puts you straight into the dashboard — the app is a desktop app on your machine, and a password prompt every launch buys nothing when anyone who can read the disk can read the data directory anyway. Turning it off gives you the normal login screen; you can change your mind later in Settings → Desktop → Require login on this device.

Turn it off if the machine is shared, or if you are going to share the app on your network — a LAN-reachable instance with login skipped is an open door.

You also pick your language and theme here.

4 · Generate

Now everything happens, in order: the database is created or connected, introspected, and an admin panel is generated from what was found — tables, columns, keys, relations, and the semantics Adminium infers from them.

Optionally, an LLM pass enriches the result with better labels, descriptions and groupings. It is off unless you turn it on, needs a provider key, and shows you a diff you have to accept before anything changes. See LLM assist.

After the wizard

config.json now exists, so the wizard never runs again. If it is ever deleted, Adminium does not start over: an unreadable or missing config next to an existing data directory is a crash screen with the file path, not a fresh install. Re-running the wizard would mint a new ADMINIUM_SECRET and orphan every encrypted connection string in the meta store — silently losing your data is worse than refusing to start.

Next

• Backups
• Share it on your network