Setting Up

This is a guide for setting up Resuminator for local Development. Our complete application (frontend + backend + website) is built using TypeScript. You can have a look at the whole tech stack to understand the internal components.

Pre-requisites#

Node.js version >= 14 or above (which can be checked by running node -v). You can use nvm for managing multiple Node versions on a single machine installed.
```
$ node -vv14.15.1
```
Firebase Account, We use firebase for authentication and storing media files. So, It is required to have a firebase account ready.

Frontend#

The repository found at resuminator/resuminator serves as the codebase for the primary application and also the website at https://www.resuminator.in.

Setting up the repository#

Fork the repository at - resuminator/resuminator to your GitHub account.
Then clone the forked repository, by typing the following line in your local terminal/powershell. Remember to replace <your-username> with your actual GitHub username.
```
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator.git
```
Navigate to the cloned repository on your local system
```
cd resuminator
```

Add remotes to the parent repository. This will help you fetch the code from the parent repo to avoid any merge conflicts later.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator.git

To verify, use the command git remote -v to check if you have two remotes - origin and upstream set up.

origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator.git (fetch)     origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator.git (push)      upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator.git (fetch)upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator.git (push)

Finally, fetch the upstream's latest code from the main branch.
```
git fetch upstream main
```

Configuring the project#

Now that you have setup the repository correctly, the next thing we will focus on is how to configure your frontend for it to be up and running and ready to receive requests from the backend server.

Install all the dependencies on your local system using the command given below.
note
It might take some time depending on your system's speed and internet connection.
```
npm install
```
We now need to configure the local environment variables which are required for external services Resuminator uses (like Firebase)
For that in your root folder create a new file named .env.local and copy the configuration below to it. Replace the required values with your own account configurations.

note

The PORT in "http://localhost:PORT" is the port at which your backend service is running.

If you have a hosted server then enter the link of the hosted server instead of "http://localhost:PORT"

.env.local

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE_URL="http://localhost:PORT"
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_KEY='YOUR_FIREBASE_API_KEY'NEXT_PUBLIC_AUTH_DOMAIN='YOUR_FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN'NEXT_PUBLIC_PROJECT_ID='YOUR_FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID'NEXT_PUBLIC_STORAGE_BUCKET='YOUR_FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET_ADDRESS'NEXT_PUBLIC_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID='YOUR_FIREBASE_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID'NEXT_PUBLIC_FIREBASE_ID='YOUR_FIREBASE_APP_ID'
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_PROD=Resuminator's Hosted Instance Address (Optional)NEXT_PUBLIC_MIXPANEL=Mixpanel API Key (Optional) NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPERCUPS=Papercups Account Key (Optional)NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPYRUS=Papyrus Server Instance Address (Optional)

info

NEXT_PUBLIC_MIXPANEL, NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPERCUPS, NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPYRUS, and NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_PROD are optional configurations which are needed for a production level setup but can be ignored for the development setup.

Optional Services#

Mixpanel - For performance analytics and collecting other usage statistics. You can setup a new Mixpanel account using the instructions here. Then use your API key as value for NEXT_PUBLIC_MIXPANEL environment variable.
Papercups - For the in-app chat module. Create a new Papercups account and use your account key as the value for NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPERCUPS to setup an in-app chat.
Papyrus - For PDF generation and printing the Resume. This is only needed if you wish to download PDFs in a local setup. Once you host your own Papyrus instance on AWS Lambda or Vercel's Serverless Functions, paste the link as the value for NEXT_PUBLIC_PAPYRUS

Starting the dev instance#

Finally once you have your .env.local configurations file in place, you can start the frontend using the following command.

npm run dev

This will by default start the server at http://localhost:3000 where you can find Resuminator's landing page.

Congratulations! Your frontend setup is now complete 🎉

info

Next, you need to setup the backend server if you wish to contribute to the main app.

You may not need to setup the backend server if you only wish to contribute to the website and NOT the main application.

Backend#

The repository found at resuminator/resuminator-server serves as the codebase for the API server which connects to a MongoDB instance to store and retrieve user data.

Required Services#

MongoDB version = 4.4.9. You can either spin up a local/Docker instance or can use MongoDB Atlas (Recommended). We personally use MongoDB Atlas at Resuminator for all of our MongoDB needs.

Optional Services#

PostHog Account. We use posthog for server-side analytics. You can either use PostHog Cloud or set up your own PostHog as it is also Open Source.
SendGrid is used for sending email on signup and account deletion.

tip

For all cloud related resources, to have lower write latency select region closer to you.

eg. If you are in India

For Firebase, Choose asia-south1.
For MongoDB Atlas, Choose either asia-south1 on GCP (Recommended) or ap-south-1 on AWS or centralindia on Azure.
For self-hosted PostHog, you can use same recommendation as that of MongoDB Atlas.

Setting up the repository#

Fork the repository at - resuminator/resuminator-server to your GitHub account.
Then clone the forked repository, by typing the following line in your local terminal/powershell. Remember to replace <your-username> with your actual GitHub username.
```
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator-server.git
```
Navigate to the cloned repository on your local system
```
cd resuminator-server
```

Add remotes to the parent repository. This will help you fetch the code from the parent repo to avoid any merge conflicts later.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator-server.git

To verify, use the command git remote -v to check if you have two remotes - origin and upstream set up.

origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator-server.git (fetch)     origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/resuminator-server.git (push)      upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator-server.git (fetch)upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/resuminator-server.git (push)

Finally, fetch the upstream's latest code from the main branch.
```
git fetch upstream main
```

Configuration#

Now that you have setup the backend repository correctly, the next thing we will focus on is how to configure project to start sending requests to the frontend instance.

Install all the dependencies on your local system using the command given below.
```
npm install
```
Create .env file in your root folder and start adding following environment variable in the file.

DB_URI is the mongodb connection string. eg. mongodb+srv://username:password@address/dbname.
.env
```
NODE_ENV='development'PORT=8080DB_URI=mongodb+srv://username:password@address/dbname
```
Add the following configurations in your .env to connect your Firebase account. These values can be found in your Service Account Credential. If You don't have a Firebase Service Account, Navigate to Project Settings > Service accounts > Generate new private key.
.env
```
...FIREBASE_TYPE=FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID=FIREBASE_PRIVATE_KEY_ID=FIREBASE_PRIVATE_KEY=FIREBASE_CLIENT_EMAIL=FIREBASE_CLIENT_ID=FIREBASE_AUTH_URI=FIREBASE_TOKEN_URI=FIREBASE_AUTH_PROVIDER_X509_CERT_URL=FIREBASE_CLIENT_X509_CERT_URL=
```

Optional Configuration#

There are some optional configurations which you can specify to have even more control over your backend instance. Add any (or all) of the required configurations in your .env file.
.env
```
NODE_ENV=specifies the node environment. Default is `development`.PORT=At which port you want to run application. Default is `8080`.
```
POSTHOG_API_KEY is required to send server side analytics to PostHog. POSTHOG_HOST is required if you have added POSTHOG_API_KEY. You can put self-hosted or PostHog Cloud URL here. Default is https://app.posthog.com.
.env
```
...POSTHOG_API_KEY=is required to send server side analytics to PostHog.POSTHOG_HOST=is required if you have added `POSTHOG_API_KEY`.
```

Setup a Send Grid account and use add the following configurations to connect to Send Grid.

.env

...SG_API=API key provided by SendGridSG_DEL_ACC=Email from which you want to send notification email.SG_EMAIL=Unique dynamic template id for Account Deletion Email.SG_NEW_ACC=Unique dynamic template id for Account Creation Email.

tip

Find Dynamic Template for Account Creation & Deletion here.

You can also alter the limits imposed on the count of objects in the database using the following config values

Config Key	Specifies	Default Value
`RESUME_COUNT`	number of max allowed resumes on platform.	3
`EDUCATION_COUNT`	number of max allowed education section on platform.	10
`EXPERIENCE_COUNT`	number of max allowed experience section on platform	10
`PROJECT_COUNT`	number of max allowed project section on platform	10
`CERTIFICATION_COUNT`	number of max allowed certification section on platform	10
`PUBLICATION_COUNT`	number of max allowed publication section on platform	10
`SKILL_COUNT`	number of max allowed skill section on platform	10
`CUSTOM_SECTION_COUNT`	number of max allowed custom section on platform	3

tip

You can find a basic .env file here

Starting the dev instance#

Finally once you have your .env configurations file in place, you can start the backend using the following command.

npm run dev

Server should be running on PORT specified in env file (or 8080 by default)

To test, type localhost:PORT/v0.2.0 in your browser and following output should appear.

{"message": "Welcome to Resuminator Backend","version": "0.2.0","license": "GPLv3"}

Congratulations! Your backend is now setup and you are ready to create resumes on your local system (or contribute to Resuminator) 🎉

Documentation#

The repository found at resuminator/docs serves as the codebase for documentation of Resuminator and its products. The current line is also written in the same codebase.

Setting up the repository#

Fork the repository at - resuminator/docs to your GitHub account.
Then clone the forked repository, by typing the following line in your local terminal/powershell. Remember to replace <your-username> with your actual GitHub username.
```
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/docs.git
```
Navigate to the cloned repository on your local system
```
cd docs
```

Add remotes to the parent repository. This will help you fetch the code from the parent repo to avoid any merge conflicts later.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/resuminator/docs.git

To verify, use the command git remote -v to check if you have two remotes - origin and upstream set up.

origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/docs.git (fetch)     origin  https://github.com/<your-username>/docs.git (push)      upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/docs.git (fetch)upstream        https://github.com/resuminator/docs.git (push)

Finally, fetch the upstream's latest code from the main branch.
```
git fetch upstream main
```

Starting the dev instance#

Once your repo is ready and configured, install all the required dependencies by running the following command in your terminal

npm install

And when the install finishes, run the local instance by using

npm start

This will start a local instance to serve the docs in your browser. Here you can monitor your changes live when you make them.