First-time setup instructions

[geerlingguy]

It looks like to get this running:

1. Clone the repository
2. Run npm install in the root directory
3. Run npm start to start the application in production mode
4. Run npm run dev to start the application in development mode

It requires Postgres running, and the environment variable DATABASE_URL to be defined. If you need to run an instance of Postgres for debugging:

$ docker run -d --name some-postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=dbpasswordhere -p 5432:5432 -d postgres

I noticed you need an .env file set for dev mode—do you have an example of what needs to be set in there?

If I set:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:dbpasswordhere@127.0.0.1:5432/postgres"

Then when I run npm run dev (or prod), and access 127.0.0.1:3000, I get Cannot GET /.

[geerlingguy]

Ah, looking at the endpoints, looks like I might need to set up some more vars like API_HOSTNAME, APP_HOSTNAME, COOKIE_SECRET, etc.

Is there any possibility of having a dev environment setup that doesn't require any live Google or Cloudflare integration, or is that all integral to the way the cloud-api app works?

(Note: This is all much lower priority than getting the stuff ready for launch—but I would love to be able to run the app locally to a point where I could easily submit fixes, etc.)

[adamshiervani]

I’ve updated the README to include instructions for getting started in both production and development environments. Additionally, a .env.example file is now included in the project to outline the required environment variables.

Is there any possibility of having a dev environment setup that doesn't require any live Google or Cloudflare integration, or is that all integral to the way the cloud-api app works?

Currently, the Google token is deeply integrated into all authenticated requests. Since it’s based on OIDC, we can likely expand the implementation in the future to remove this dependency. The Cloudflare integration, on the other hand, is simpler to eliminate. It primarily serves to provide STUN and TURN servers, so we could allow users to specify alternative STUN/TURN servers somehow. However, this would require some development effort.