Development

Docmost is a monorepo which uses pnpm workspace and nx. This is a guide on how to set it up for local development.

Project structure​

The frontend client is developed using Vite and React, with the user interface powered by the Mantine UI library. The backend server is built using the Nest.js framework.

Requirements​

To run Docmost, you'll need the following:

• Node.js: >= 20
• Postgres: >= 14
• Redis/Valkey

Development setup​

Make sure you have pnpm installed npm install -g pnpm.

Plain

$ git clone https://github.com/docmost/docmost
$ cd docmost$ pnpm install
$ cp .env.example .env

Make sure to update the .env file.

Build the editor package first​

$ pnpm nx run @docmost/editor-ext:build

Frontend​

# run in development watch mode
$ pnpm nx run client:dev

Backend​

# run in watch mode
$ pnpm nx run server:start:dev
# development
$ pnpm nx run server:start

Build project​

$ pnpm build

This will build all the necessary packages. You can run the built server and client using pnpm nx run server:start. The project will run on http://localhost:3000.Check the package.json of each app to learn more about all the available commands.

Migrations​

In development mode, you have to run the latest migrations manually. These are the useful migration commands.

# To run all pending database migrations
$ pnpm nx run server:migration:latest
# To run one migration up
$ pnpm nx run server:migration:up
# To run one migration down
$ pnpm nx run server:migration:down
# To drop all migrations
$ pnpm nx run server:migration:reset
# To create new empty migration file. 
$ pnpm nx run server:migration:create migration_name_here

Migrations are stored inside the apps/server/src/database/migrations directory.

If you make changes to the database, e.g.creating a new table or column, you will have to regenerate the db types with

pnpm nx run server:migration:codegen

The project does not make use of any ORM. We use the Kysely query builder to build typesafe sql queries.

Ps: If you wish to make code contributions to Docmost, you will need to accept our Contributor License Agreement (CLA) before your PR can be accepted.