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Run Novu locally

⚡ Immediate working space with GitPod​

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Requirements​

  • Node.js version v16.15.1
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • (Optional) pnpm - Needed if you want to install new packages
  • (Optional) localstack (required only in S3 related modules)

Need help installing the requirements? Read more here

Setup the project​

After installing the required services on your machine you can clone and setup your forked version of the project.

  • Fork Novu's repository. Clone or download your fork to your local machine.
  • Run initial setup command npm run setup:project to install and build all dependencies
  • Run the project locally using: npm run start

The npm run start will start all of the services in parallel including the API's and web clients. If you only want to run parts of the platform, you can use the following run commands from the root project:

  • start:dev - Synonym to npm run start
  • start:web - Only starts the web management platform
  • start:ws - Only starts the WebSocket service for notification center updates
  • start:widget - Starts the widget wrapper project that hosts the notification center inside an iframe
  • start:api - Run the API in watch mode
  • start:dal - Run the Data Access Layer package in watch mode
  • start:shared - Starts the watch mode for the shared client and API library
  • start:node - Runs the @novu/node package in watch mode
  • start:notification-center - Runs and build the React package for the Novu notification center

Setting up environment variables​

The command npm run setup:project will create default environment variables that are required for Novu to be run in a development environment. If you want to test certain parts of Novu or run it in production mode though, some of them will have to be changed. All available environment variables are listed below.

API Backend
  • NODE_ENV (default: local)
    The environment of the app. Possible values are: dev, test, prod, ci, local
  • S3_LOCAL_STACK
    The AWS endpoint for the S3 Bucket required for storing various media
  • S3_BUCKET_NAME
    The name of the S3 Bucket
  • S3_REGION
    The AWS region of the S3 Bucket
  • PORT
    The port on which the API backend should listen on
  • FRONT_BASE_URL
    The base url on which your frontend is accessible for the user. (e.g. web.novu.co)
  • DISABLE_USER_REGISTRATION (default: false)
    If users should not be able to create new accounts. Possible values are: true, false
  • REDIS_HOST
    The domain / IP of your redis instance
  • REDIS_PORT
    The port of your redis instance
  • JWT_SECRET
    The secret keybase which is used to encrypt / verify the tokens issued for authentication
  • SENDGRID_API_KEY
    The api key of the Sendgrid account used to send various emails
  • MONGO_URL
    The URL of your MongoDB instance
  • NOVU_API_KEY
    The api key of web.novu.co used to send various emails
  • SENTRY_DSN
    The DSN of sentry.io used to report errors happening in production
WebSocket Service
  • NODE_ENV (default: local)
    The environment of the app. Possible values are: dev, test, prod, ci, local
  • SENTRY_DSN
    The DSN of sentry.io used to report errors happening in production
  • REDIS_HOST
    The domain / IP of your redis instance
  • REDIS_PORT
    The port of your redis instance
  • REDIS_DB_INDEX
    The database index of your redis instance
  • JWT_SECRET
    The secret keybase which is used to encrypt / verify the tokens issued for authentication
  • MONGO_URL
    The URL of your MongoDB instance
  • PORT
    The port on which the WebSocket service should listen on

Running tests​

After making some changes, you can run the tests for the different package using the appropriate CLI commands.

API​

To run the API tests you can simply run the following command:

npm run start:e2e:api

The test will run a new instance of Novu against the test db and run the tests against it. The test db will be removed after tests has finished running.

Web​

To run the front end tests for the web project using cypress you will need to install localstack in order for all the tests to pass. The cypress test perform and E2E test, meaning that you will have to run the API service in the appropriate test environment. To run the services in test env you can use:

npm run start:e2e:api
npm run start:ws:test

Run the cypress test suite using:

cd apps/web && npm run cypress:run

To open the cypress management windows to debug tests run:

cd apps/web && npm run cypress:open

Different ports used by the services the projects spins up​

  • 3000 - API
  • 3002 - WebSocket service
  • 4200 - Web Management UI
  • 4500 - Iframe embed for notification center

Testing providers​

To run tests against the providers folder you can use the "npm run test:providers" command.