iTELL

See our documentation here: iTELL Wiki

Development Instructions

There are two ways to run a iTELL project locally:

• Use Dev Containers. This is the recommended approach if you are comfortable working with VSCode and Docker.

• Build the project manually. This may be more straightforward if you are experienced in working with pnpm monorepos.

Either way, you can start with cloning this repository

git clone https://github.com/learlab/itell.git

Manual Setup

Make sure you have the following tools installed:

• Node.js: use version 20.0 or higher

• pnpm: use version 9.0 or higher

• A postgres database. If you choose to use a local database, you need to create a database with an arbitrary name and get its url. You can use a tool like pgAdmin for this.

After cloning the repository and cd into the folder, you will see the following folder structure: (omitting some folders for brevity)

apps/
  app-1/
    package.json
  app-2/
packages
  package-1/
  package-2/
package.json

The apps folder contains the different iTELL volumes. Each app is a separate Next.js project. They share common dependencies that you should download via

pnpm install

Then, go the specific volume folder you are working on. For example, if you are working on the app-1 volume, change directory into apps/app-1/.

cd apps/app-1

Create a new file .env in the volume folder. Fill in the necessary environment variables. Contact a team member for the values.

Important

Replace the DATABASE_URL value in .env with the URL of your postgres database.

With the .env file in place, you can initialize your database and build the app.

pnpm drizzle-kit migrate
pnpm run build:deps

The commands should finish in less than 5 minutes, the logs at the end looks like

@itell/app-1:build: ○  (Static)   prerendered as static content
@itell/app-1:build: ●  (SSG)      prerendered as static HTML (uses generateStaticParams)
@itell/app-1:build: ƒ  (Dynamic)  server-rendered on demand
@itell/app-1:build:
@itell/app-1:build:

 Tasks:    10 successful, 10 total
Cached:    0 cached, 10 total
  Time:    1m40.234s

If you see no error messages from the commands above, all setup work is done. You can now start the development server.

pnpm run dev

This will print a localhost URL where you can view the app in your browser.

The next time you want to start the development server, you only need to run pnpm run dev in the volume folder. No need to run the other commands again.

All commands

# install dependencies
pnpm install
# go to the volume directory
cd apps/app-1
# fill in the .env file and initialize the database
pnpm drizzle-kit migrate
# build
pnpm run build:deps

# start the development server
pnpm run dev

With Dev Containers

Dev containers are a convenient method for ensuring a completely reproducible development environment.

1. Install Docker and VS Code.
2. Install the Remote - Containers extension in VS Code.
3. Clone this repository and open it in VS Code.
4. Add a .env file to the root of the repository (speak to a team member for the contents).
5. Use the "Reopen in Container" command.
6. Open a new VS Code terminal (inside the container) and run pnpm install turbo --global.
7. Make sure that the git repository is trusted. Use the "Git: Manage Unsafe Repositories" command.
8. Run turbo run dev --filter=@itell/research-methods-in-psychology (or whichever iTELL volume/app you want to work on).