FAQ

Quick answers to the questions that come up most.

Is Mitch‑Dojo really free? Yes — AGPL-3.0 open source, self-hosted, no per-member fees. You pay for whatever hardware you run it on.

How many dojos can I run? One school per instance, by design — but with multiple locations. A second school means a second instance; keeping tenants separate is what keeps the data model simple.

Can students check themselves in? Yes — each location gets a no-login QR check-in page. Tokens are revocable if a QR leaks.

Does it send SMS or WhatsApp? No, deliberately. Email only — see the out-of-scope list in the introduction.

Can parents see progress? Yes — send a member portal magic link (30-day expiry, hashed tokens). The portal shows belts, upcoming classes, attendance, balance, and their consent documents, and lets them sign agreements, download invoices/agreements, update their contact details, and set email preferences.

Do you handle waivers, consent forms, and medical info? Yes — the school's agreement documents (privacy notice, informed consent, safety expectations, or your own set) are versioned in Admin → Documents and signed digitally through the portal or recorded from paper. Health/medical notes live on the student record behind a dedicated PHI permission — see Documents & Consent.

Can I take payments online? Not yet. Payments are recorded manually (cash/transfer/terminal). Stripe/SEPA/PayPal gateways are the planned Phase 12 — the invoice model is already shaped for them.

How do I migrate from a spreadsheet? CSV. Import students first, then attendance and belt history — see Importing History. Everything exports back out to CSV too.

Can I use Mitch‑Dojo in another language? Yes. English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Russian ship today. Set the school-wide default in Admin → General, or switch language per device with the header selector. The ten languages added after English/Spanish are initial machine-assisted translations, so native review is welcome. PDFs bundle Noto fonts; Arabic/Hindi shaping and Arabic RTL are best-effort. See Adding a Language for adding another one.

What if I outgrow the embedded database? Switch DATABASE_PROVIDER to postgres — the schema is identical in both modes. See Dual-Mode Database.

How is my data backed up? You own it: Postgres dumps or PGlite volume snapshots, plus the file-storage mount. Recipes in Backups.

Can I white-label it as my school? Yes — this is a white-label solution, not a fixed-brand product. Set your organization name under Admin → General; set light/dark logos, primary/secondary colours, radius, page width, and booking headline/description under Admin → Appearance. Under Admin → Email set your From name/address and choose the email logo. Those settings show up on the staff UI, login screens, booking page, member portal, check-in screens, emails, and generated PDFs. A custom domain is configured at the reverse proxy/deployment layer (APP_URL), not in the app. The documentation site and source repository remain Mitch‑Dojo, and the AGPL-3.0 license still applies.

Can two instructors use it at once? Yes — that's what roles are for. Give trainers the seeded Trainer role; they see floor operations, not administration.

Does it work on a Raspberry Pi? Yes — that's what Lite mode is for: one container, embedded PostgreSQL, SD-card-friendly backup recipes included.

What happens to my data if I stop using Mitch‑Dojo? It's yours, in a standard Postgres database plus ordinary files on disk. Export to CSV any time; no lock-in, no export fees.