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Docker Local Development Setup

This guide explains how to run weconnect-server in a local Docker environment.

Prerequisites

Quick Start

1. Create the shared Docker network

All WeVote services (WeVoteServer, WebApp, weconnect-server) share a Docker network named wevote. Create it once:

docker network create wevote

2. Configure environment variables

Copy the template and fill in your values:

cp .env-template .env

If you want to customize the database username and password used by weconnect-server, update the settings in the .env file:

# .env
DATABASE_USERNAME=your_username_here
DATABASE_PASSWORD=your_password_here

The Docker Compose file overrides DATABASE_HOST, DATABASE_PORT, HTTPS_SSL_CERT, and HTTPS_SSL_KEY automatically, so you do not need to set those in .env for Docker.

3. Build and start the services

docker compose up --build

This will:

  1. Start a PostgreSQL database
  2. Wait for the database to be healthy
  3. Run prisma generate and prisma migrate deploy to apply all migrations
  4. Start the weconnect-server with nodemon (auto-reloads on file changes)

The API will be available at https://localhost:4500.

To run in the background:

docker compose up --build -d

4. Stop the services

docker compose down

To also remove the database volume (deletes all data):

docker compose down -v

Development Workflow

Live code reloading

The source directory is mounted into the container at /app, so edits you make on the host are reflected immediately. nodemon watches for changes and restarts the server automatically.

Running Prisma commands

To run Prisma commands inside the running container:

# Open a shell in the api container
docker compose exec weconnect-api sh

# Then run Prisma commands
npx prisma studio          # visual database browser at http://localhost:5555
npx prisma migrate dev     # create a new migration
npx prisma db seed         # run seed script (if configured)

Or run them directly without opening a shell:

docker compose exec weconnect-api npx prisma studio
docker compose exec weconnect-api npx prisma migrate dev --name my_migration

Running tests

docker compose exec weconnect-api npm test

Viewing logs

docker compose logs -f weconnect-api    # follow api logs
docker compose logs -f weconnect-db     # follow database logs

Troubleshooting

docker network create wevote fails with "already exists" The network already exists — this is fine, proceed to the next step.

Prisma migration fails on startup Check that the database settings are correct in .env. Run docker compose logs weconnect-db to inspect database errors.

node_modules issues or package errors Rebuild the image to reinstall dependencies:

docker compose build --no-cache 
docker compose up