Squash project setup guide

• Database: PostgreSQL 13.2
• Back-end: TS - NestJS
• Front-end: React - NextJS

Preparation

1. Install Docker and Docker Compose on your computer.

2. Clone the repository.

3. Make a copy of either env/docker-compose.override.dev.yml or env/docker-compose.override.prod.yml based on your execution environment to the project root and rename it to docker-compose.override.yml. (testing is considered a prod environment)

4. Make a copy of each *.example.env in the env folder and rename them to *.dev.env or *.prod.env based on your execution environment.

Environment configuration

Environmental variables can be configured for eact container (postgres, nestjs and nextjs) via their respective .env files in the project root.

Postgres

Field name	Description
POSTGRES_USER	Username of the database user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Password of the database user
POSTGRES_DB	Name of the database the application uses

NestJS

Field name	Description
POSTGRES_HOST	The address at which the database is available. In this application the name of the database service can be used instead of an IP.
POSTGRES_PORT	The port on which the database is listening
POSTGRES_USER	Username of the database user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Password of the database user
POSTGRES_DATABASE	Name of the database the application uses
RUN_MIGRATIONS	Whether to run migrations on application start.
ENTITIES_DEV	Use the values from the example file. DO NOT TOUCH.
MIGRATIONS_DEV	Use the values from the example file. DO NOT TOUCH.
ENTITIES_PROD	Use the values from the example file. DO NOT TOUCH.
MIGRATIONS_PROD	Use the values from the example file. DO NOT TOUCH.
MODE	The type of environment the application is running in. (DEV or PROD)
PORT	The port the application is listening on.
API_URL	The full HTTP URL used for accessing the application.
JWT_SECRET	The secret used in the Json Web Token generation process.
JWT_EXPIRATION_TIME	Validity of the JWT issued on login (in ms)
BASE_USERNAME	Username of the generated user with admin access
BASE_PASSWORD	Password of the generated user with admin access
SMTP_DOMAIN	Domain of the mailserver used by the application to send email.
SMTP_USER	Username for the mail server.
SMTP_PASSWORD	Password for the mail server.

NextJS

Field name	Description
API_URL	The address of the back-end. In this application the name of the back-end service can be used instead of an IP (for a local environment, in a production env this HAS to be the external URL of the server).

Running the application

Back-end development

For back-end development use the

docker-compose up

command, that way the console of the containers is attached to the terminal you're running this from.

To stop execution simply terminate the console process.

Have fun.

Front-end development

For front-end development start by typing the command

docker-compose up -d

This starts the database and the back-end in detached mode. Start the front-end with

docker-compose exec next sh
npm run dev

To stop the front-end simply terminate the npm process (Ctrl+C).

Good luck.

Testing and production

To start the application simply type

docker-compose up -d --build

To stop the application type

docker-compose down

Important

All environments use hot reloading, so you don't have to rebuild the docker container every time you make changes to the code. However, if you make changes to node_modules you should stop the containers with

docker-compose down

and rebuild with

docker-compose build

or start the project with the --build flag.

This also applies when pulling changes from the repository.