Getting Started

Environment Variables

The following environment variables control where the database, uploaded files and exports are stored:

Variable	Default	Description
FOSSIL_TRACKER_DB	data/fossil_tracker.sqlite3	Path to the SQLite database file
FOSSIL_TRACKER_DOCUMENTS	data/documents	Path to the folder where documents are uploaded
FOSSIL_TRACKER_EXPORT	data/exports	Path to the folder where JSON exports are saved
FOSSIL_TRACKER_IMAGES	data/images	Path to the folder where images are uploaded

If required, these should be set before running the Streamlit application.

Create and Activate a virtual environment

Run the setup script to create a Python virtual environment and install the project dependencies.

python -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -e .

These commands are correct for MacOS/Linux but will need to be modified for Windows.

Initialise the Database

Create the SQLite database and apply all outstanding database migrations:

fossil-tracker init-db

Start the Streamlit application

Launch the web interface for managing your fossil collection:

streamlit run src/streamlit_app.py

Once started, Streamlit will display the local URL where the application is available.

Browse the database with Datasette

The project also includes a Datasette interface for exploring the SQLite database. This can be started as follows:

fossil-tracker datasette --port 8001

This provides a convenient, read-oriented view of the underlying data and supports ad hoc searching and querying.