Point Board

• Development
• Testing backend
• Deployment

Development

Install dependencies

Backend dependencies

Run go install from backend/

Frontend dependencies

From the project root directory:

cd frontend
npm install

Generate html template

Within the frontend/ folder, run

npm run build

This will create or update index.html and bundle/bundle.js inside dist (The dist folder will be created if it doesn't exist). For more information on npm run build, take a look at package.json and webpack.

The backend will use frontend/dist/index.html as a html template, which it populates using data from the database and serves to the browser.

Develop frontend

Within the frontend/ folder, run

npm start

This will starts the frontend in development mode and begin listening on port (8080 by default). Visit localhost:8080 if it is not opened in browser yet. :x

Note that this is limited in the sense that the frontend doesn't pull data from the database. Only the backend is able to pull data, populate the template, and serves to the browser. Therefore, the page you will see on localhost:8080 isn't populated with data. However, this is a convenient way to see the effect of stylesheets, and some frontend scripts.

Start the database

To run a local database, make sure you have redis installed. Start the server by running redis-server. This will start the database on port 6379 by default.

Development database vs. testing database

You need to run two different database for development and testing. Specify the database url for each database in backend/config.go.

Develop Backend

From the backend/ folder, run

go run server.go

to start the server. Make sure that the database config is correct in the config.go file.

Testing backend

From the backend/ folder, run go test to start the tests.

Deployment

1. Make sure you have run npm run build to reflect your latest edit on frontend
2. Use Copilot to deploy!

Deploy Database

Under project root directory, run:

touch db.Dockerfile
echo "FROM redis\nEXPOSE 6379" >> db.Dockerfile

This will expose the port 6379 for incoming traffic. You can use a different port but make sure to change the deployment configuration in backend/config.go accordingly.

While using Copilot:

1. Use db.Dockerfile to deploy the database
2. Be sure to select "Backend App" for app type. For more information, visit here. You can use environment variables to set up the dbURL in backend/config.go, as described here.

Deploy Backend

Similarly, deploy the backend using Copilot, and select "Load Balanced Web App" for app type. For more information, visit here.