DevTalk - Discussion Platform

A full-stack discussion platform built with React, Node.js, and MySQL.

Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed on your system

Running the Application

1. Clone the repository
2. From the project root directory, run:

   # For the first time
   docker compose up --build
   
   # After building the first time 
   docker compose up
   
   

3. Wait for all services to start up. The first time this may take a few minutes as Docker needs to build the images.

Once all services are running, you can access:

• Frontend: http://localhost:5173
• Backend API: http://localhost:3000
• PHPMyAdmin: http://localhost:3307

Admin Access

In development (docker-compose.yml), a default admin account is seeded with:

• Username: Admin
• Password: pass

For production, admin seeding is disabled by default. If you want to bootstrap an admin user on first deploy, set:

• SEED_ADMIN=true
• ADMIN_USERNAME=...
• ADMIN_PASSWORD=...

Project Structure

• frontend/ - React application built with Vite
• backend/ - Node.js Express API
• docker-compose.yml - Docker configuration for all services

Development

To access the container shells for development:

• Frontend: docker compose exec frontend sh
• Backend: docker compose exec backend sh

Production (Droplet)

Use docker-compose.prod.yml plus an .env file (see prod.env.example).