Lodestar

Lightweight collaborative document editor inspired by Google Docs — scoped for a focused product slice: create/edit with rich text, import files, share with teammates, and persist across refresh.

Demo accounts

Email	Name	Password
alice@ajaia.dev	Alice Chen	password123
bob@ajaia.dev	Bob Rivera	password123
cara@ajaia.dev	Cara Nguyen	password123

Alice owns a seeded welcome doc already shared with Bob.

Live product

See LIVE_URL.txt (filled after deploy). Deploy steps: DEPLOY.md.

Local setup

Requirements: Node.js 20+ and npm.

cp .env.example .env
npm install
npm run db:setup
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Scripts

Command	Purpose
npm run dev	Local development server
npm run build / npm start	Production build + serve
npm run db:setup	Create SQLite schema and seed users
npm test	Run automated tests

What works

• Create, rename, edit, auto-save, reopen documents
• Rich text: bold, italic, underline, H1/H2, bullet/numbered lists
• Import .txt, .md, .docx (max 2 MB) into a new document
• Attach a file to an existing document (optional content import)
• Share by email with another seeded user; owned vs shared lists
• SQLite persistence for documents, shares, and attachment metadata

Supported file types

Allowed: .txt, .md, .docx
Not supported: .doc, .pdf, images, and other binaries (stated in the UI)

Docker (optional)

docker build -t lodestar-docs .
docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 -e AUTH_SECRET="replace-with-long-secret" lodestar-docs

Incomplete / intentionally deprioritized

• No real-time multiplayer cursors or OT/CRDT sync
• Sharing is binary access (no viewer/commenter roles)
• Attachment binaries stored on local disk (uploads/), not object storage
• No version history, comments, or export-to-PDF

Next 2–4 hours (if continuing)

1. Postgres + object storage for durable multi-instance deploy
2. Presence / last-edited-by indicators
3. Markdown export and share-link invites for non-seeded emails