Life Planner

A monorepo for the Life Planner application, managing both the frontend dashboard and the backend academic APIs.

🛠 Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
Turborepo	Monorepo build system and task orchestrator.
Next.js	Frontend framework for the student dashboard.
Express.js	Backend REST API server.
PostgreSQL	Relational database for schedules, courses, and users.
Prisma	TypeScript ORM for database interactions.
Zod	Schema validation for API requests and shared types.
Tailwind CSS	Utility-first CSS framework for frontend styling.

📦 Project Structure

life-planner/
├── apps/
│   ├── api/        # Express backend
│   └── web/        # Next.js frontend
└── packages/
    ├── db/         # Prisma client and database schemas
    ├── schemas/    # Shared Zod validation schemas
    └── types/      # Shared TypeScript interfaces

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed on your machine:

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• Git
• PostgreSQL (Running locally or via a cloud provider)

Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <your-github-repo-url>
cd life-planner

2. Install all dependencies:

(Do not install packages inside individual folders. Run this at the root.)

npm install

3. Set up Environment Variables:

• Duplicate .env.example in the root and rename it to .env.
• Fill in your local PostgreSQL database URL.

4. Initialize the Database:

cd packages/db
npx prisma db push
cd ../../

5. Start the Development Servers:

   npm run dev

• Frontend: http://localhost:3000
• Backend API: http://localhost:4000

---

🧭 Developer Onboarding

Primary Onboarding (all teammates)

These are the minimal steps required for most frontend and feature work. Backend-specific steps (migrations, generating Prisma client) are optional and documented separately below.

1. Clone and install (use the committed lockfile for consistent versions):

git clone <your-github-repo-url>
cd life-planner
npm ci

2. Create local env file from the example and add only values required for frontend or mock APIs:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env to fill values

3. Start developer servers (runs both apps):

npm run dev

4. Run linters and formatting checks before committing:

npm run lint
npm run format

5. Tests (if present):

npm test

Optional: Backend Onboarding (backend maintainers only)

Follow these steps only if you're responsible for database changes or running the API locally with a real DB.

1. Ensure PostgreSQL is running locally or use a connection string pointing to a dev database.
2. From the packages/db directory run the following to apply migrations and generate the Prisma client:

cd packages/db
npx prisma migrate dev --name init
npx prisma generate
cd ../../

3. If the project provides seeds, run them as documented in packages/db.

Note: Prisma migrations are source-controlled in packages/db/prisma/migrations/. Do not reformat or delete migration files.

✅ Commit & Branching Workflow

We recommend a feature-branch + PR workflow targeting main. We commit package-lock.json to lock dependency versions so everyone's installs are consistent.

• Branch naming: feature/short-description, fix/short-description, chore/short-description
• Keep commits small and focused. Use Conventional Commits for clear history.

Example Conventional Commit messages:

• feat(api): add course enrollment endpoint
• fix(web): correct datetime display bug
• docs: update README onboarding
• chore: bump deps

Example commit sequence:

# create a feature branch
git checkout -b feature/add-user-endpoint

# stage changes
git add -A

# commit with a concise Conventional Commit message
git commit -m "feat(api): add user create endpoint"

# push branch and open a PR
git push -u origin feature/add-user-endpoint

If you must push directly to main (avoid when possible), ensure CI/lint/tests pass locally and use:

git checkout main
git pull
git merge --no-ff feature/add-user-endpoint -m "chore: merge feature/add-user-endpoint"
git push origin main

Commit message tips

• Start with a type: feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, perf, test, chore.
• Scope is optional but useful: feat(api): ... or fix(web): ....
• Keep the subject line <= 72 chars. Optionally add a longer body separated by a blank line.

Example full commit with body:

feat(api): add course enrollment endpoint

Adds POST /courses/:id/enroll to allow students to enroll. Validates
request body with Zod and returns 201 on success.

Closes: #123

Pre-push checklist (recommended)

• Run npm ci (uses committed package-lock.json)
• Run npm run lint and address issues
• Run npm test (if tests exist)
• Build production bundles if changing build output: npm run build