Participation Platform mein.berlin

mein.berlin is a participation platform for the city of Berlin, Germany. It is based on adhocracy 4.

Requirements

• Node.js (+ npm)
• Python 3.x (+ venv + pip)
• libmagic
• libjpeg
• libpq (only if PostgreSQL is used)
• GDAL
• SpatiaLite with JSON1 enabled (only if SpatiaLite is used for local development)
• Redis (required in production, optional for development)

Installation (Development & Testing Only!)

Note: If you are on macOS, you need GNU sed installed for the following steps to work:

brew install gnu-sed

Installing SpatiaLite

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y libsqlite3-mod-spatialite

macOS (with Homebrew)

brew update
brew install spatialite-tools
brew install gdal

For GeoDjango to be able to find the SpatiaLite library, add the following to your local.py:

SPATIALITE_LIBRARY_PATH = "/usr/local/lib/mod_spatialite.dylib"

Pyenv

If you are using pyenv, you need to create your venv with the following command:

PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions" pyenv install 3.12.9 (with your version)

Steps to Install and Run Development Server

git clone https://github.com/liqd/a4-meinberlin.git
cd a4-meinberlin
make install
make fixtures
make watch

(Optional) PostgreSQL Database for Testing

If you need to test with PostgreSQL instead of SpatiaLite, run:

make postgres-create

To start the test server with PostgreSQL:

export DATABASE=postgresql
make postgres-start
make watch

To remove the Python virtual environment and npm modules:

make clean

If your virtual environment is located outside the project, uninstall Python packages manually:

pip uninstall -r requirements/dev.txt

(Optional) celery for task queues

If you need to do testing with a proper celery setup.

For celery to register and run tasks you need to make sure that:

• the redis server is running
• the celery config parameter "always eager" is disabled (add CELERY_TASK_ALWAYS_EAGER = False to your local.py)

To start a celery worker in the foreground, run:

make celery-worker-start

Stop celery with ctr+C

To inspect all registered tasks, list the running worker nodes, run:

make celery-worker-status

To send a dummy task to the queue and report the result, run:

make celery-worker-dummy-task

See more info about Celery in the docs

(Optional) celery beat for scheduled tasks in development

If you need to do testing with periodical task working.

For celery to run scheduled tasks you need to make sure that:

• the redis server is running
• the celery worker is running (see previous step)

To start celery beat in the foreground, run:

make celery-beat

Stop celery beat with ctr+C

To add scheduled tasks (same for all environments) check the docs

In case of settings.TIME_ZONE change, tasks need to be synced with the new time. See HOWTO

Style Library

Berlin.de base styles for the public site are vendored as meinberlin/assets/berlin_css/berlin_marketing.scss (from berlin.de/i9f/r1/bundle/berlin_marketing.css) and imported via style_user_facing.scss.

For style-guide alignment with the Vertical Participation design system (designsystem.berlin.de), we merge in only the relevant rules and tokens via meinBerlin SCSS overrides — we do not replace the marketing bundle wholesale.

Merged from participation (via overrides):

Change	Override location
Primary green #439c76 ($primary, $panel-colored)	styles_user_facing/variables/_colors.scss
.panel--colored background	components_user_facing/_service-panel.scss
.text--color-primary	styles_user_facing/_utility.scss
Search submit arrow colour	components_user_facing/_searchform-slot.scss
Topic pills (pill--topic)	components_user_facing/_pill.scss

meinBerlin-only layout fixes (not in either vendor bundle): teaser blocks, hero, accordion, content footer — see components_user_facing/ and changelog/style-guide-alignment.md.

Updating vendor CSS (before releases):

• Download berlin_marketing.css from berlin.de; update paths in berlin_marketing.scss as noted in the file header.
• When the participation style guide changes, diff berlin_participation.css against marketing and port only what meinBerlin still needs into the override files above.
• Run npm run build and regression-test key pages.

Font Awesome and berlin_marketing.js are still loaded from berlin.de separately (base.html). Until upstream versions are pinned, update vendor CSS only before releases — breaking changes are not always announced.