Local setup

Requirements

• Node.js 20+ and npm
• Git
• Build tools for the better-sqlite3 native module if no prebuilt binary matches your platform (Xcode Command Line Tools on macOS, build-essential and python3 on Linux)

Run it

git clone https://github.com/chmedinap/pethealth.git
cd pethealth

# Terminal 1 — API on http://localhost:3001 (data in backend/data)
cd backend
npm install
JWT_SECRET=dev ALLOW_REGISTRATION=true npm run dev

# Terminal 2 — UI on http://localhost:5173
cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. The Vite dev server proxies /api and /uploads to the backend; set BACKEND_URL if the API runs elsewhere. npm run dev in the backend uses nodemon and restarts on changes.

The first start creates backend/data/pethealth.db, the admin / admin123 user and the demo pets. Delete backend/data/ to start over.

Useful variables while developing

SEED_DEMO=false          # start empty
LOGIN_RATE_LIMIT=0       # no login throttling
SMTP_HOST=localhost SMTP_PORT=1025   # e.g. with Mailpit/MailHog to see emails
TZ=America/New_York

Production build without Docker

cd frontend && npm run build          # outputs frontend/dist
cp -r frontend/dist backend/public    # the backend serves ./public as the SPA
cd backend && NODE_ENV=production JWT_SECRET=... node src/index.js

The Docker image does exactly this (see Building the image).