Set up star.vote locally

Follow these guidelines for setting up star.vote locally on your system. This is highly recommended if you want to contribute regularly.

Some of these contribution workflows – like fixing bugs in the codebase – need you to run star.vote locally on your computer.

What’s the difference between star.vote and bettervoting.com ?
The current star.vote is an old implementation with a separate codebase. bettervoting.com is a work in progress, and will eventually become the new star.vote. When I mention star.vote in the guide I’m referring to the new star.vote

Prepare your local machine

Start by installing the prerequisite software for your operating system.

Prerequisites:

Prerequisite	Version	Notes
Node.js	`20.x`	-
npm (comes bundled with Node)	`10.x`	-

If you have a different version, please install the recommended version. We can only support installation issues for recommended versions. See troubleshooting for details.

If Node.js is already installed on your machine, run the following commands to validate the versions:

node -v
npm -v

We highly recommend updating to the latest stable releases of the software listed above, also known as Long Term Support (LTS) releases.

Once you have the prerequisites installed, you need to prepare your development environment. This is common for many development workflows, and you will only need to do this once.

Follow these steps to get your development environment ready:

Install Git or your favorite Git client, if you haven’t already. Update to the latest version; the version that came bundled with your OS may be outdated.
Install a code editor of your choice.

We highly recommend using Visual Studio Code.
Set up linting for your code editor. (NOTE: we don’t actually have this yet, but we should at some point so I’m leaving the instructions here)

You should have ESLint running in your editor, and it will highlight anything that doesn’t conform to freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript Style Guide.

Please do not ignore any linting errors. They are meant to help you and to ensure a clean and simple codebase.

Learning the Tech

Our stack uses typescript for both frontend and backend, and we use React to render the webpages.

If haven’t worked with those technologies before, I recommend following the crash courses before getting setup

The basics

Here’s some videos to quickly get up to speed on the core skills

Javascript Crash Course : You’ll need to understand Javascript before learning typescript. This crash course also does a great job of getting you onboarded to general web development as well as covering the javascript.
Typescript Crash Course : Typescript adds a couple of features to Javascript. You can probably understand most of our code base with just Javascript knowledge, but it’s also good to have the context on Typescript. This video is much shorter, just to give you a broad typescript overview.
React Crash Course
(Optional) I also found frontendexpert.io very helpful to give an overview of everything, but it does cost money

Additional Reading

We compile our typescript using Vite, you can learn more in the Vite and Vite Awesome Repo.

To learn more React, check out the React documentation.

Fork the repository on GitHub

Forking is a step where you get your own copy of star.vote’s main repository (a.k.a repo) on GitHub.

This is essential, as it allows you to work on your own copy of star.vote on GitHub, or to download (clone) your repository to work on locally. Later, you will be able to request changes to be pulled into the main repository from your fork via a pull request (PR).

The main repository at https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server is often referred to as the upstream repository.

Your fork at https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server is often referred to as the origin repository. YOUR_USER_NAME would be replaced with your GitHub username.

Follow these steps to fork the https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server repository:

Go to the star.vote repository on GitHub: https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server
Click the “Fork” Button in the upper right-hand corner of the interface (More Details Here)
After the repository has been forked, you will be taken to your copy of the star.vote repository at https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server (YOUR_USER_NAME would be replaced with your GitHub user name.)

How to fork on GitHub (screenshot)

Clone your fork from GitHub

Cloning is where you download a copy of a repository from a remote location that is either owned by you or by someone else. In your case, this remote location is your fork of star.vote’s repository that should be available at https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server. (YOUR_USER_NAME would be replaced with your GitHub user name.)

Run these commands on your local machine:

Open a Terminal / Command Prompt / Shell in your projects directory

i.e.: /yourprojectsdirectory/
Clone your fork of star.vote, replacing YOUR_USER_NAME with your GitHub Username
```
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server.git
```

This will download the entire star.vote repository to your projects directory.

Note: --depth=1 creates a shallow clone of your fork, with only the most recent history/commit.

Set up syncing from parent

Now that you have downloaded a copy of your fork, you will need to set up an upstream remote to the parent repository.

As mentioned earlier, the main repository is referred upstream repository. Your fork referred to as the origin repository.

You need a reference from your local clone to the upstream repository in addition to the origin repository. This is so that you can sync changes from the main repository without the requirement of forking and cloning repeatedly.

Change directory to the new star-server directory:
```
cd star-server
```

Add a remote reference to the main star.vote repository:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server.git

Ensure the configuration looks correct:

git remote -v

The output should look something like below (replacing YOUR_USER_NAME with your GitHub username):

origin      https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server (fetch)
origin      https://github.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/star-server (push)
upstream        https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/Equal-Vote/star-server (push)

Running star.vote locally

Now that you have a local copy of star.vote, you can follow these instructions to run it locally.

This will allow you to:

Preview edits to pages as they would appear on star.vote.
Work on UI related issues and enhancements.
Debug and fix issues with the application servers and client apps.

If you do run into issues, first perform a web search for your issue and see if it has already been answered. If you cannot find a solution, please search our GitHub issues page for a solution and report the issue if it has not yet been reported.

And as always, feel free to ask questions on the #_software-dev slack channel.

If you haven’t joined the STAR Voting slack yet, you can follow the instructions here to get added

You may skip running star.vote locally if you are simply editing files. For instance, performing a rebase, or resolving merge conflicts.

You can always return to this part of the instructions later. You should only skip this step if you do not need to run the apps on your machine.

Skip to making changes.

Run the backend (Optional)

This your own backend is optional, if you only plan to work in the frontend then you can use PROXY_URL to reference the live backend instead of running your own .

Step 1: Set up the backend environment variable file

Request access for the dev credentials doc. After obtaining access, copy the “Sample.env (Azure)” section of the to ./backend/.env (you will have to create this file).

Step 2: Install dependencies and launch backend

You can now start the backend

# Run these commands from the root of the project (not in the packages folder)!
# Installs dependencies for all workspaces
npm i -ws 
# Builds shared workspace
npm run build -w @equal-vote/star-vote-shared
# Launch the backend workspace 
npm run dev -w @equal-vote/star-vote-backend # Launches backend

Then open a separate terminal for the remaining steps

Run the frontend

Step 1: Set up the frontend environment variable file

Copy default environment variables for the frontend by running one of the following commands in the root of the frontend source directory packages/frontend.

macOS/Linux

cp sample.env .env

Windows

copy sample.env .env

Step 2: Update PROXY_URL

Now your .env should have 2 proxy urls, but one of them is commented

If your running your own backend, then leave the default sample.env

# PROXY_URL=https://bettervoting.com # Use this one if you want to reference the live backend
PROXY_URL=http://localhost:5000 # use this one if you're running your own backend

If you’re referencing the live developer backend instead of running your own, then update the comments as follows

PROXY_URL=https://bettervoting.com # Use this one if you want to reference the live backend
# PROXY_URL=http://localhost:5000 # use this one if you're running your own backend

Step 3: Install dependencies and start the star.vote client application and API server

Now we can run the frontend

Build workspace & install dependencies (you can skip these if you already ran them in the backend steps)

# Run these commands from the root of the project (not in the packages folder)!
# Installs dependencies for all workspaces
npm i -ws 
# Builds shared workspace
npm run build -w @equal-vote/star-vote-shared

Launch frontend (in a new terminal).

# Run Frontend
npm run dev -w @equal-vote/star-vote-frontend

Hosting database and Keycloak locally

If you want to make changes to database schemas or keycloak settings, or don’t have access to dev credentials, you can host the database and keycloak server locally with Docker.

Follow the instructions here to install docker, check system requirements for turning on WSL if using Windows. After installed start Docker Desktop.

docker-compose.yml in the project directory contains the configuration launching the server, database, and keycloak. Not much work has been done yet on running all three together, however you can launch the database with

docker compose  -f "docker-compose.yml" up -d --build my-db 

Next, update the database variables in your backend .env with

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:ChangeMeOrDontTest2020@localhost:5432/postgres
DEV_DATABASE=FALSE

and run the commands

cd packages/backend
npm run build
npm run migrate:latest

Migrate:latest will initialize the database tables with the latest migrations.

To run keycloak:

docker compose  -f "docker-compose.yml" up -d --build keycloak

You can then access keycloak at http://localhost:8080/

See the keycloak deployment and configuration documentation for next steps.

Deploying to localhost still uses the same KeyCloak userbase as production (at least for now). If you want to login to the production keycloak make sure you followed the keycloak step in the environment variable setup. That said logging in through localhost does require some extra steps, so be sure to follow these additional steps

Click the login button
Login with your standard credentials (i.e. not admin)

Making changes locally

You can now make changes to files and commit your changes to your local clone of your fork.

Follow these steps:

Validate that you are on the main branch:
```
git status
```
You should get an output like this:
```
On branch main
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/main'.

nothing to commit, working directory clean
```
If you are not on main or your working directory is not clean, resolve any outstanding files/commits and checkout main:
```
git checkout main
```
Sync the latest changes from the star-server upstream main branch to your local main branch:

[!WARNING] If you have any outstanding pull request that you made from the main branch of your fork, you will lose them at the end of this step.

You should ensure your pull request is merged by a moderator before performing this step. To avoid this scenario, you should always work on a branch other than the main.

This step will sync the latest changes from the main repository of star-server. It is important that you rebase your branch on top of the latest upstream/main as often as possible to avoid conflicts later.

Update your local copy of the star-server upstream repository:
```
git fetch upstream
```
Hard reset your main branch with the star.vote main:
```
git reset --hard upstream/main
```
Push your main branch to your origin to have a clean history on your fork on GitHub:
```
git push origin main --force
```
You can validate your current main matches the upstream/main by performing a diff:
```
git diff upstream/main
```
The resulting output should be empty.
Create a fresh new branch:

Working on a separate branch for each issue helps you keep your local work copy clean. You should never work on the main. This will soil your copy of star-server and you may have to start over with a fresh clone or fork.

Check that you are on main as explained previously, and branch off from there:
```
git checkout -b fix/update-guide-for-xyz
```
Your branch name should start with a fix/, feat/, docs/, etc. Avoid using issue numbers in branches. Keep them short, meaningful and unique.

Some examples of good branch names are:
```
fix/update-challenges-for-react
fix/update-guide-for-html-css
fix/platform-bug-sign-in-issues
feat/add-guide-article-for-javascript
translate/add-spanish-basic-html
```
Edit pages and work on code in your favorite text editor.
Once you are happy with the changes you should optionally run star-server locally to preview the changes.
Make sure you fix any errors and check the formatting of your changes.

Check and confirm the files you are updating:

git status

This should show a list of unstaged files that you have edited.

On branch feat/documentation
Your branch is up to date with 'upstream/feat/documentation'.

Changes were not staged for commit:
(use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in the working directory)

    modified:   CONTRIBUTING.md
    modified:   docs/README.md
    modified:   docs/how-to-work-on-guide-articles.md
...

Stage the changes and make a commit:

In this step, you should only mark files that you have edited or added yourself. You can perform a reset and resolve files that you did not intend to change if needed.
```
git add path/to/my/changed/file.ext
```
Or you can add all the unstaged files to the staging area:
```
git add .
```
Only the files that were moved to the staging area will be added when you make a commit.
```
git status
```
Output:
```
On branch feat/documentation
Your branch is up to date with 'upstream/feat/documentation'.

Changes to be committed:
(use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    modified:   CONTRIBUTING.md
    modified:   docs/README.md
    modified:   docs/how-to-work-on-guide-articles.md
```
Now, you can commit your changes with a short message like so:
```
git commit -m "fix: my short commit message"
```
Some examples:
```
fix: update guide article for Java - for loop
feat: add guide article for alexa skills
```
Optional:

We highly recommend making a conventional commit message. This is a good practice that you will see on some of the popular Open Source repositories. As a developer, this encourages you to follow standard practices.

Some examples of conventional commit messages are:
```
fix: update HTML guide article
fix: update build scripts for Travis-CI
feat: add article for JavaScript hoisting
docs: update contributing guidelines
```
Keep these short, not more than 50 characters. You can always add additional information in the description of the commit message.

This does not take any additional time than an unconventional message like ‘update file’ or ‘add index.md’

You can learn more about why you should use conventional commits here.
If you realize that you need to edit a file or update the commit message after making a commit you can do so after editing the files with:
```
git commit --amend
```
This will open up a default text editor like nano or vi where you can edit the commit message title and add/edit the description.
Next, you can push your changes to your fork:
```
git push origin branch/name-here
```

Proposing a Pull Request (PR)

After you’ve committed your changes, check here for how to open a Pull Request.

Available NPM Scripts

`npm run build -ws`

Builds all of the packages in the project.

`npm run dev -w @equal-vote/star-vote-backend`

Runs a dev server for the backend which restarts on local changes.

`npm run dev -w @equal-vote/star-vote-frontend`

Runs a dev server for the frontend with hot module replacement and proxys API calls to the local backend dev server.

`npm run clean`

Deletes the node_modules in the root directory.

`npm run clean:ws`

Deletes the node_modules and build artifacts for the entire project.

`npm start -w @equal-vote/star-vote-frontend`

Runs the frontend in preview mode (which serves the locally built and bundled artifacts without hot module replacement.

Troubleshooting

Issues installing dependencies

If you get errors while installing the dependencies, please make sure that you are not in a restricted network or your firewall settings do not prevent you from accessing resources.

The first time setup can take a while depending on your network bandwidth. Be patient, and if you are still stuck we recommend using GitPod instead of an offline setup.

[!NOTE] If you are using Apple Devices with M1 Chip to run the application locally, it is suggested to use Node v14.7 or above. You might run into issues with dependencies like Sharp otherwise.

Backend: too many connections for role “abcd…”

This happens when the development database exceeds it’s limit of 10k rows. This mainly happens because our pgboss cron job fills up the database over time. Those jobs are supposed to expire but that’s an issue we’re working on. This issue is not present with production becasue the row limit is much higher (10 million)

For now we’ve been fixing the issue by clearing the dev database periodically. Ping @mikefraze on slack if it needs to be cleared

Getting Help

If you are stuck and need help, feel free to ask questions on the #_software-dev slack channel.