Development setup

Running the whole platform on your own machine, and the two values you have to supply.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Notes
Node.js	`>=22`	Declared in the root `engines.node`.
pnpm	`^11`	Pinned via `devEngines.packageManager` — it downloads itself if missing.
PostgreSQL	`>=16`	Reached through `DATABASE_URL`. No test command needs one.
Redis	`>=7`	For BullMQ and the live metric cache. Set `maxmemory-policy noeviction`.
Docker	Any recent, with the Compose v2 plugin	Required to deploy anything. Without it, container panels report "unreachable", deployments fail at the build step, and everything else still works.

Install

pnpm install
cp apps/backend/.env.example apps/backend/.env
cp apps/dashboard/.env.example apps/dashboard/.env

Supply the two values with no safe default in apps/backend/.env:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://…
AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)

Every other variable ships with a working default. Only .env.example is ever committed.

To store environment variables for deployed applications, generate a master key as well and point SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_FILE at it.

Create the schema

pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:deploy

Run

App	Command	URL
API	`pnpm --filter @sthora/backend dev`	`http://localhost:4600` — health at `/health`, OpenAPI at `/docs`
Email previews	`pnpm --filter @sthora/backend email:dev`	`http://localhost:4601`
Dashboard	`pnpm --filter @sthora/dashboard dev`	`http://localhost:3600`
Marketing site	`pnpm --filter @sthora/website dev`	`http://localhost:3601`
This site	`pnpm --filter @sthora/docs dev`	`http://localhost:3602`
Everything under `apps/`	`pnpm dev`	In parallel

Production builds:

pnpm --filter @sthora/backend build && pnpm --filter @sthora/backend start
pnpm --filter @sthora/dashboard build && pnpm --filter @sthora/dashboard start

Local development is split-origin

The dashboard runs on 3600 and the API on 4600, so the API needs both:

CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://localhost:3600
AUTH_TRUSTED_ORIGINS=http://localhost:3600

A self-hosted install serves both on one origin and leaves the first empty.

By default the pipeline writes to /var/lib/sthora on the managed server and stages uploads in /var/lib/sthora/uploads on the control plane. On a development machine point DEPLOY_DATA_ROOT and DEPLOY_UPLOAD_STAGING_PATH somewhere writable instead.

Database commands

pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:generate   # regenerate the Prisma client
pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:migrate    # create and apply a migration
pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:deploy     # apply committed migrations
pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:studio     # browse the data
pnpm --filter @sthora/backend db:validate   # check the schema

prisma generate also runs on install, so a fresh clone builds without a manual step.

Prisma 7 note

The connection URL lives in apps/backend/prisma.config.ts only. Prisma 7 removed url from the schema's datasource block, and the running app passes a @prisma/adapter-pg adapter to the client instead.

Editing these docs

Pages are MDX under apps/docs/content/docs/. Adding a file adds a page — the sidebar, the search index, the sitemap, and llms.txt are all generated from the same tree. Order a folder with its meta.json.

Every page needs a title and a description in its frontmatter. A test asserts it, because a missing description is invisible until a search result renders empty.