Getting Started

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or later
• pnpm 9.x (npm install -g pnpm@9)
• MongoDB Atlas cluster (or local MongoDB 7+)
• Git

Optional (for full feature set):

• Redis (Upstash or local) -- enables cross-instance caching and document queue
• Discord Developer Application -- enables bot and webhook logging
• Zoom Marketplace App -- enables meeting transcript ingestion
• Google Cloud Storage bucket -- enables image uploads
• Anthropic/OpenAI/XAI API key -- enables AI features

Clone and Install

git clone https://github.com/vicharanashala/crowd-source-faq.git
cd crowd-source-faq
pnpm install

Configure Environment Variables

Backend

cp apps/backend/.env.example apps/backend/.env

Edit apps/backend/.env and set the required values:

Variable	Required	Description
MONGODB_URI	Yes	MongoDB connection string
JWT_SECRET	Yes	Min 32 characters. Generate with openssl rand -hex 32
PORT	No	Defaults to 6767
NODE_ENV	No	development or production
CLIENT_URL	No	Full URL of the frontend (used for Zoom OAuth redirects)

See Environment Variables for the complete reference.

Frontend

cp apps/frontend/.env.example apps/frontend/.env

For local development, the frontend .env can be left empty. The Vite dev server proxies API calls to localhost:6767 automatically.

Run in Development

Using the development script

./run.sh

This starts both the backend (port 6767) and frontend dev server (port 5173) with hot module reloading.

Using turbo (manual)

# Start both
pnpm dev

# Backend only
pnpm dev:backend

# Frontend only
pnpm dev:frontend

Backend only (with tsx)

cd apps/backend
npx tsx src/server.ts

Verify

• Backend health: curl http://localhost:6767/csfaq/api/health
• Frontend dev: Open http://localhost:5173/csfaq/ in your browser
• Backend serves SPA: Open http://localhost:6767/csfaq/ (uses compiled frontend from apps/frontend/dist)

Build for Production

pnpm build

This runs turbo build, which:

1. Builds the frontend Vite SPA into apps/frontend/dist
2. The backend TypeScript is executed directly via tsx (no separate build step)

Run Tests

pnpm test:run         # Unit tests
pnpm test:e2e         # End-to-end tests (Playwright)
pnpm test:all         # Both
pnpm typecheck        # TypeScript type checking
pnpm lint             # ESLint

Create an Admin User

After the server is running with a connected database, create an admin user:

curl -X POST http://localhost:6767/csfaq/api/auth/register \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "firstName": "Admin",
    "lastName": "User",
    "email": "admin@example.com",
    "password": "your-secure-password",
    "phone": "+1234567890"
  }'

Then promote the user to admin in MongoDB:

// In MongoDB shell or Atlas UI
db.users.updateOne(
  { email: "admin@example.com" },
  { $set: { role: "admin" } }
)

Project Scripts

Script	Description
pnpm dev	Start all apps in development mode
pnpm build	Build all apps for production
pnpm test	Run tests in watch mode
pnpm test:run	Run tests once
pnpm typecheck	TypeScript type checking
pnpm lint	Run ESLint
pnpm format:check	Check Prettier formatting
pnpm format:write	Fix Prettier formatting