CommunityHub

CommunityHub is a platform for managing communities, their members, meetings, tasks, and social activity. This repository is a monorepo that holds both the web frontend and the API backend in a single place, so the two applications can be developed, versioned, and reviewed together.

Repository structure

CommunityHub/
├── backend/            NestJS API (TypeORM, PostgreSQL, Redis, WebSockets)
├── frontend/           Next.js web application (React, Tailwind CSS, next-auth)
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/      CI and deployment workflows
├── docker-compose.yml  Full local stack: database, cache, API, and web
├── .env.example        Environment template used by Docker Compose
└── README.md

Each application keeps its own package.json, lockfile, and .env.example, so they can be installed and deployed independently. The full history of both projects is preserved in this repository.

Tech stack

Backend:

• NestJS 11 with a CQRS and modular architecture
• TypeORM with PostgreSQL
• Redis and Bull for background jobs
• WebSockets for real-time notifications
• Passport with JWT and Google OAuth
• Swagger and Scalar API reference

Frontend:

• Next.js 16 with the App Router and React 19
• Tailwind CSS and Radix UI
• next-auth for authentication
• Axios for API access

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or newer
• npm 10 or newer
• Docker and Docker Compose (for the containerized workflow)

Quick start with Docker Compose

This is the fastest way to run the entire stack (PostgreSQL, Redis, backend, and frontend) with a single command.

1. Create your environment file from the template:

   cp .env.example .env

   Open .env and set at least JWT_SECRET and, if you use Google login, the GOOGLE_* values.

2. Start everything:

   docker compose up --build

3. Open the applications:

   Service	URL	Notes
   Frontend (web)	http://localhost:3001	Next.js application
   Backend (API)	http://localhost:3000/api	NestJS application, routes under /api
   API reference	http://localhost:3000/api/reference	Scalar interactive API docs
   PostgreSQL	localhost:5433	Mapped from container port 5432
   Redis	localhost:6379	Cache and job queue

4. Stop the stack:

   docker compose down

   To also remove the database and cache volumes, run docker compose down -v.

Optional: pgAdmin

pgAdmin is available under the tools profile so it does not start by default:

docker compose --profile tools up

It is then served at http://localhost:5050 using the PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL and PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD values from your .env.

Optional: single origin gateway

By default the API and the web app run on separate ports. If you prefer a single origin, which also removes CORS from the picture, start the stack with the gateway override:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.gateway.yml up --build

Everything is then served through a Traefik reverse proxy on port 8080:

URL	Serves
http://localhost:8080	Web app
http://localhost:8080/api	API

The two direct ports (3000 and 3001) stay available as well, so you can use whichever style you prefer.

Local development without Docker

If you prefer to run the applications directly, start a PostgreSQL and a Redis instance yourself (or run only those two services with docker compose up postgres redis), then run each app.

Backend

cd backend
cp .env.example .env      # set DB_HOST=localhost and your secrets
npm install
npm run start:dev

The API starts on http://localhost:3000 with all routes under the /api prefix (for example http://localhost:3000/api/reference). Database migrations are available through the migration:* scripts in backend/package.json.

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The web app starts on http://localhost:3000 by default. Because the backend also uses port 3000, run the frontend on another port when both run locally (for example npm run dev -- -p 3001), and set NEXT_PUBLIC_BACKEND_URL to the API base including the /api prefix (for example http://localhost:3000/api).

Environment variables

The root .env is used by Docker Compose. The most important values are listed below.

Variable	Used by	Description
DB_HOST	backend, database	Database host (postgres inside Docker)
DB_PORT	backend, database	Database port
DB_USERNAME	backend, database	Database user
DB_PASSWORD	backend, database	Database password
DB_DATABASE	backend, database	Database name
JWT_SECRET	backend	Secret used to sign JWT tokens
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID	backend	Google OAuth client id
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	backend	Google OAuth client secret
FRONTEND_URL	backend	Allowed CORS origin for the web app
REDIS_HOST	backend	Redis host (redis inside Docker)
NEXT_PUBLIC_BACKEND_URL	frontend	API base URL for the browser, including the /api prefix

Available ports

Port	Service
3000	Backend API
3001	Frontend web app
5433	PostgreSQL
6379	Redis
5050	pgAdmin (tools only)
8080	Gateway (gateway override only)

Deployment

The backend ships with a manual deployment workflow at .github/workflows/backend-deploy.yml that runs the test suite and deploys to an EC2 host over SSH. It is triggered from the Actions tab (workflow_dispatch) and expects the repository secrets EC2_HOST, EC2_USER, EC2_SSH_KEY, JWT_SECRET, GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID, and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET. The workflow assumes the monorepo is checked out on the server and deploys from the backend/ directory.

Contributing

Create a feature branch from main, keep changes scoped to the relevant application where possible, and open a pull request. Frontend and backend can be worked on independently, and their histories remain intact for git blame and git log --follow.