How to get started

Follow the steps below to get a local development environment up and running.

Prerequisites

Before you can start developing, you need to install the following tools:

Are you using Windows?

If you're running Windows, it's highly recommended to first install WSL. This sets up a Linux environment on your Windows machine and simplifies development.

When you have WSL installed, you can open a WSL terminal and follow the instructions below as if you were using Linux normally.

Install Node.js.

Using nvm to install Node.js is strongly recommended.

The installation steps are provided below for reference, but for up-to-date instructions, visit the link above. Open a terminal and run the following commands:

bash

# installs nvm (Node Version Manager)
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.0/install.sh | bash
# download and install Node.js (you may need to restart the terminal)
nvm install 20
# verifies the right Node.js version is in the environment
node -v # should print `v20.18.0`
# verifies the right npm version is in the environment
npm -v # should print `10.8.2`

Install pnpm.
Now, install the package manager pnpm. Installing pnpm using Corepack is strongly recommended.
bash
```
corepack enable pnpm
```
Install Docker Desktop.
Finally, install Docker by installing the graphical Docker interface Docker Desktop. This is not strictly required for development, but it simplifies setting up a development database. When the installation is complete, open a terminal and verify that Docker is installed by running the following command:
bash
```
docker -v
```
It should output the version of Docker you installed (your version may be different).
bash
```
Docker version 20.10.17, build 100c701
```

Setting up the project

Clone the repo into dsek-web and change into the directory.

bash

git clone https://github.com/Dsek-LTH/web.git dsek-web && cd dsek-web

Install all dependencies using pnpm. Having problems?
bash
```
pnpm install
```
Setup your local development database. Having problems?
bash
```
./dev/setup_db.sh
```
Start the development server.
bash
```
pnpm dev
```
Congratulations! You should now be able to visit your application on http://localhost:5173.

Troubleshooting

Node.js permissions issues

If you encounter permission issues when running the pnpm install command, you may have installed Node.js using sudo. This can cause permission issues when installing packages. To fix this, we recommend uninstalling Node.js completely and reinstalling it without sudo using nvm.

Database setup issues

Issues commonly occur when setting up the local development database. Usually, this shows up either as errors when running ./dev/setup_db.sh or as simply not seeing any data when the development server starts. Here are some steps you can try to fix the problem:

Begin by deleting the local database. Open Docker Desktop and delete dsek-db (or use the command below).
bash
```
docker rm --force dsek-db
```
If you noticed permission errors while running ./dev/setup_db.sh, try running the script using sudo.
bash
```
sudo ./dev/setup_db.sh
```
Finally, you can always try to run the commands in the ./dev/setup_db.sh script manually. This makes it easier to troubleshoot what's going on. Open a terminal and run the commands below one-by-one.
INFO
Some commands span multiple lines! Backslashes \ are used to break a command into multiple lines. These commands must be copied in their entirety instead of line-by-line.
sh
```
#!/bin/bash
docker compose up -d

echo "\nWaiting for database to start..."
until docker exec dsek-db pg_isready
do
    sleep 0.5;
done
# Sometimes the database is not ready yet even though pg_isready returns true
sleep 0.5;

# Setup migrations for prisma and seed database
pnpm migrate
pnpm seed
```

How to get started ​

Prerequisites ​

Setting up the project ​

Troubleshooting ​

Node.js permissions issues ​