ghostfolio/DEVELOPMENT.md

Ghostfolio Development Guide

Development Environment

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Node.js (version >=22.18.0)
• Create a local copy of this Git repository (clone)
• Copy the file .env.dev to .env and populate it with your data (cp .env.dev .env)

Setup

1. Run npm install
2. Run docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.dev.yml up -d to start PostgreSQL and Redis
3. Run npm run database:setup to initialize the database schema
4. Start the server and the client
5. Open https://localhost:4200/en in your browser
6. Create a new user via Get Started (this first user will get the role ADMIN)

Dev Container

As an alternative to the manual Setup above, Visual Studio Code users can develop inside a Dev Container. It runs the application in a Docker container alongside PostgreSQL and Redis, pre-installed with the required build tooling (Node.js 22, g++, git, make, openssl, python3).

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Visual Studio Code with the Dev Containers extension
• Copy the file .env.dev to .env and populate it with your data (cp .env.dev .env)

Info: Use .env.dev, not .env.example, as the base for .env. After copying, change DATABASE_URL and REDIS_HOST to point to the service names postgres and redis instead of localhost.

Setup

1. Open the repository folder in Visual Studio Code
2. Run the command Dev Containers: Reopen in Container (this builds the container and runs npm install automatically)
3. In the container's integrated terminal, run npm run database:setup to initialize the database schema
4. Start the server
5. Start the client with npm run start:client -- --host 0.0.0.0 instead of the usual command (see note below)
6. Open https://localhost:4200/en in your browser
7. Create a new user via Get Started (this first user will get the role ADMIN)

Info: The client dev server binds to localhost by default, which is only reachable from within the container itself. Passing --host 0.0.0.0 makes it listen on all interfaces so Visual Studio Code's forwarded port reaches it from your browser on the host. This is not required for the server, which already binds to 0.0.0.0 by default. The start:client script also passes -o to open a browser automatically; since there is no browser inside the container, this will harmlessly fail and can be ignored.

Start Server

Debug

Run npm run watch:server and click Debug API in Visual Studio Code

Serve

Run npm run start:server

Start Client

English (Default)

Run npm run start:client and open https://localhost:4200/en in your browser.

Other Languages

To start the client in a different language, such as German (de), adapt the start:client script in the package.json file by changing --configuration=development-en to --configuration=development-de. Then, run npm run start:client and open https://localhost:4200/de in your browser.

Start Storybook

Run npm run start:storybook

Migrate Database

With the following command you can keep your database schema in sync:

npm run database:push

Testing

Run npm test

Experimental Features

New functionality can be enabled using a feature flag switch from the user settings.

Backend

Remove permission in UserService using without()

Frontend

Use @if (user?.settings?.isExperimentalFeatures) {} in HTML template

Component Library (Storybook)

https://ghostfol.io/development/storybook

Git

Rebase

git rebase -i --autosquash main

Dependencies

Angular

Upgrade (minor versions)

1. Run npx npm-check-updates --upgrade --target "minor" --filter "/@angular.*/"

NestJS

Upgrade (minor versions)

1. Run npx npm-check-updates --upgrade --target "minor" --filter "/@nestjs.*/"

Nx

Upgrade

1. Run npx nx migrate latest
2. Make sure package.json changes make sense and then run npm install
3. Run npx nx migrate --run-migrations

Prisma

Access database via GUI

Run npm run database:gui

https://www.prisma.io/studio

Synchronize schema with database for prototyping

Run npm run database:push

https://www.prisma.io/docs/concepts/components/prisma-migrate/db-push

Create schema migration

Run npm run prisma migrate dev --name added_job_title

https://www.prisma.io/docs/concepts/components/prisma-migrate#getting-started-with-prisma-migrate

SSL

Generate localhost.cert and localhost.pem files.

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout apps/client/localhost.pem -out apps/client/localhost.cert -days 365 \
  -subj "/C=CH/ST=State/L=City/O=Organization/OU=Unit/CN=localhost"