diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index fae2888d..c80b69c7 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -33,6 +33,8 @@ uv pip install -r application/requirements.txt  # or: pip install -r application
 # uv pip install -r application/requirements-docling.txt   # docling parser engine (OCR backend, structured output)
 # uv pip install -r application/requirements-milvus.txt    # VECTOR_STORE=milvus
 # With uv alone: `uv sync --extra docling` (pyproject.toml + uv.lock are the source of truth).
+# `uv pip install -r application/requirements-docling.txt` needs UV_INDEX_STRATEGY=unsafe-best-match
+# (the file adds the PyTorch CPU index; prefer `uv sync --extra docling`).
 ```
 
 Dependencies are declared in `pyproject.toml` and locked in `uv.lock`; the
diff --git a/application/Dockerfile b/application/Dockerfile
index 9caa2720..5e9fdd57 100644
--- a/application/Dockerfile
+++ b/application/Dockerfile
@@ -136,7 +136,10 @@ RUN if python -c "import docling" 2>/dev/null; then \
 
 COPY --chown=appuser:appuser . /app/application
 
-RUN mkdir -p /app/application/inputs/local
+# Runtime data directories, owned by the process user so a named volume
+# mounted on them (docker-compose-standalone.yaml) inherits that ownership
+# and uploads work without running the container as root.
+RUN mkdir -p /app/application/inputs/local /app/inputs /app/indexes /app/vectors
 
 ENV FLASK_APP=app.py
 
diff --git a/application/requirements-docling.txt b/application/requirements-docling.txt
index 5e3822ad..a7654fad 100644
--- a/application/requirements-docling.txt
+++ b/application/requirements-docling.txt
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@
 # through application/parser/file/ocr_parser.py.
 # On Linux torch comes from the CPU-only PyTorch index (no CUDA stack); a GPU
 # deployment can reinstall torch from PyPI on top.
+# pip resolves the extra index as expected. uv only takes a package from the
+# first index that lists it, and the PyTorch index carries stale copies of
+# common packages, so with uv either run 'uv sync --extra docling' (the lock
+# pins the index per package) or set UV_INDEX_STRATEGY=unsafe-best-match.
 # Docker: --build-arg EXTRAS=docling
 
 --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
diff --git a/deployment/docker-compose-standalone.yaml b/deployment/docker-compose-standalone.yaml
index 14bc3135..937de312 100644
--- a/deployment/docker-compose-standalone.yaml
+++ b/deployment/docker-compose-standalone.yaml
@@ -32,6 +32,10 @@ services:
 
   backend:
     image: arc53/docsgpt:${DOCSGPT_IMAGE_TAG:-latest}${DOCSGPT_IMAGE_VARIANT:-}
+    # Same as docker-compose-hub.yaml: the data volumes are written by root so
+    # any image tag works, including releases that predate the appuser-owned
+    # /app/inputs, /app/indexes and /app/vectors directories.
+    user: root
     env_file:
       - path: .env
         required: false
@@ -55,6 +59,7 @@ services:
 
   worker:
     image: arc53/docsgpt:${DOCSGPT_IMAGE_TAG:-latest}${DOCSGPT_IMAGE_VARIANT:-}
+    user: root
     # Consumes the default queue plus `parsing` (read_document) and `embeddings`
     # (query embedding); without the latter every search times out.
     command: celery -A application.app.celery worker -l INFO -B -Q docsgpt,parsing,embeddings
diff --git a/docs/content/Deploying/Development-Environment.mdx b/docs/content/Deploying/Development-Environment.mdx
index f1b90d12..895b3fcb 100644
--- a/docs/content/Deploying/Development-Environment.mdx
+++ b/docs/content/Deploying/Development-Environment.mdx
@@ -108,6 +108,10 @@ To run the DocsGPT backend locally, you'll need to set up a Python environment a
     # or with uv: uv sync --extra docling --extra milvus
     ```
 
+    The docling file adds the PyTorch CPU index; pip handles that as-is, while
+    `uv pip install -r` needs `UV_INDEX_STRATEGY=unsafe-best-match` (or use
+    `uv sync --extra docling`, which reads the lock).
+
     A feature whose extra is missing fails with the exact command to run.
     After changing `pyproject.toml`, run `uv lock` and
     `bash scripts/export_requirements.sh` so the exported files stay in sync
diff --git a/scripts/export_requirements.sh b/scripts/export_requirements.sh
index effae6ee..e86edd22 100755
--- a/scripts/export_requirements.sh
+++ b/scripts/export_requirements.sh
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@ OCR_ENABLED=true with the tesseract binary (or a DeepSeek-OCR endpoint) runs
 through application/parser/file/ocr_parser.py.
 On Linux torch comes from the CPU-only PyTorch index (no CUDA stack); a GPU
 deployment can reinstall torch from PyPI on top.
+pip resolves the extra index as expected. uv only takes a package from the
+first index that lists it, and the PyTorch index carries stale copies of
+common packages, so with uv either run 'uv sync --extra docling' (the lock
+pins the index per package) or set UV_INDEX_STRATEGY=unsafe-best-match.
 Docker: --build-arg EXTRAS=docling" \
   --extra docling