🧠 Boards Room (Backend)

Boards Room is the real-time backend service powering collaborative drawing sessions around Excalidraw. It supports user access control, persistent board storage via PostgreSQL, and file uploads via S3.

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✅ Features

• ⚡ Real-time collaboration using Socket.IO
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Board grouping, permissions, and user roles
• 🔗 Invite users to boards with unique links
• ☁️ File upload and storage with S3
• 🗃️ Persistent board data using PostgreSQL
• 🔐 API and WebSocket authentication with API tokens

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⚙️ Setup

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/Excali-Boards/boards-room.git
cd boards-room
pnpm install

2. Configure environment

Create a .env file (or copy example.env) with the following variables:

# Allowed origins (comma-separated)
ALLOWED_ORIGINS="http://localhost:3002"

# API auth
API_TOKEN="your-api-token"           # Shared token with frontend
DEVELOPERS="admin@example.com"       # Comma-separated admin user emails

# Server settings
PORT=3004
DATABASE_URL="your-database-url"

# Database connection pooling
DB_POOL_MIN=2
DB_POOL_MAX=10

# Valkey/Redis cache
CACHE_HOST=localhost
CACHE_PORT=6379
CACHE_PASSWORD=
CACHE_DB=0
CACHE_DEFAULT_TTL=300

# S3 storage
S3_ENDPOINT="https://s3.example.com"
S3_ACCESS_KEY="your-access-key"
S3_SECRET_KEY="your-secret-key"
S3_BUCKET="your-bucket-name"
S3_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_MS=15000
S3_SOCKET_TIMEOUT_MS=30000
S3_MAX_ATTEMPTS=3

# Request body limits
MAX_REQUEST_SIZE_BYTES=10485760
MAX_UPLOAD_REQUEST_SIZE_BYTES=20971520

# Rate limiting (optional)
RATE_LIMITING_ENABLED=false
RATE_LIMITING_WINDOW_MS=60000
RATE_LIMITING_MAX_REQUESTS=100

🔐 Note: The API_TOKEN is required for all communication between frontend and backend. Keep it secret.

3. Run the server

pnpm run rebuild

Backend runs at http://localhost:3004.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, fixes, and ideas are welcome! If you'd like to get involved:

• Fork the repository and make your changes.
• Run pnpm lint && pnpm typecheck before pushing.
• Open a pull request with a clear description.

Please follow the existing coding style and commit clean, atomic changes.

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💬 Support

Questions, issues, or just want to chat? Join our community on Discord: 👉 https://discord.gg/4rphpersCa

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📜 License

GNU General Public License v3.0