Skills Union - Instructor Scheduling System (Node.js)

Technologies

• TypeScript
• Node v16
• Express
• Prisma
• Postgres@14
• Docker

Quick Start

You will need 2 Terminals.

Terminal 1:

docker compose up --build

Terminal 2:

npm install
npx prisma migrate deploy # push migration changes to postgres container
npx prisma generate # generate an instance of prisma in node_modules based on ./prisma/schema.prisma file
npm run dev # start the app

Database

Instead of connecting to a database installed on your local machine, this project uses a postgres docker image to run as your database. The data of the database within the container is being mapped to ./postgres-data so that when you restart the docker, all the data are persisted.

To access the database in the container, use the psql command:

psql -h localhost -d suissdb  -p 5050 -U root -W

Enter password: root as indicated in docker-compose.yml

Migration

If you pull a new source code that has new migration files ./prisma/migrations, you have to run

npx prisma migrate deploy

The best practice recommended from Prisma is never change historical migration script. If we made a mistake in a migration, we should create a new mirgration (move forward) to correct it. Then, use the squash feature to merge those migrations.

Running the App

Install Docker and make sure it is running. To start the project in Docker, run docker compose up in the root directory of this project.

Use docker compose up to run the application and access http://localhost:8080.

docker compose up

If you change some config file apart from code, you might need to rebuild the image. Then, use docker compose up --build.

docker compose up --build

WARNING

If you are using M1 Chip, there is incompatibility issue between Docker Alpine + Mac M1 Chip + Prisma Query Library. Read more here.

There is no solutions tentatively other than simply:

(1) Only use Postgres in docker-compose.yml

# This docker-compose.yml is only for development environment.

version: '3.8'
services:

  postgres:
    image: postgres:14.1-alpine
    restart: always
    environment:
      # You can set the value of environment variables
      # in your docker-compose.yml file
      # Our Node app will use these to connect
      # to the database
      - POSTGRES_USER=root
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=root
      - POSTGRES_DB=suissdb
    ports:
      # Standard port for PostgreSQL databases
      - "5050:5432"
    
    volumes:
      - ./postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

And run:

docker compose up # add --build flag to rebuild image when needed

The original docker-compose.yml file:

# This docker-compose.yml is only for development environment.

version: '3.8'
services:
  # These are the configurations for our Node app
  # When Docker Compose starts this container it will automatically
  # use the Dockerfile in the directory to configure it
  app:
    build: .
    depends_on:
      # Our app does not work without our database
      # so this ensures our ddeatabase is loaded first
      - postgres
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      # Maps our current project directory `.` to
      # our working directory in the container
      - .:/app
      - ./src:/app/src

  # This is the configuration for our PostgreSQL database container
  # Note the `postgres` name is important, in out Node app when we refer
  # to  `host: "postgres"` that value is mapped on the network to the 
  # address of this container.
  postgres:
    image: postgres:14.1-alpine
    restart: always
    environment:
      # You can set the value of environment variables
      # in your docker-compose.yml file
      # Our Node app will use these to connect
      # to the database
      - POSTGRES_USER=root
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=root
      - POSTGRES_DB=suissdb
    ports:
      # Standard port for PostgreSQL databases
      - "5050:5432"
    
    volumes:
      - ./postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

(2) Run the application without docker

Run the following commands on terminal to start application:

npm install
npm run dev