Redefined Designs

One-of-a-kind item storefront. React + TypeScript + antd frontend (Vite), Express + TypeScript backend, Postgres, PayPal checkout, customer accounts with GDPR-style consent handling, and an authentik-gated admin panel.

Project layout

backend/ Express + TypeScript API, Postgres access, PayPal integration frontend/ React + TypeScript + antd storefront and admin UI (Vite)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Docker (for a local, disposable Postgres instance)
• npm

Clone

git clone https://gitea.bermudalamb.synology.me/bermudalamb/redefined-designs.git
cd redefined-designs

Running locally

Commands below are shown for PowerShell (Windows). A bash equivalent is noted wherever the syntax differs.

1. Start a local Postgres instance

The backend needs Postgres to talk to during local development. backend/docker-compose.test.yml spins up a throwaway, tmpfs-backed instance — no data persists between restarts, which is fine for local dev and tests.

cd backend
npm run db:test:up

This starts Postgres on localhost:55432, database redefined_test.

2. Run migrations

PowerShell / bash (same command, cross-platform via Node):

cd backend $env:PGHOST="localhost"; $env:PGPORT="55432"; $env:PGUSER="redefined_test"; $env:PGPASSWORD="redefined_test"; $env:PGDATABASE="redefined_test" npm install npm run migrate:up

This applies every migration in backend/migrations/ in order, tracked in a pgmigrations table so re-running is always safe (already-applied migrations are skipped).

To add a new migration:

npm run migrate:create -- descriptive-name

This generates a timestamped file in backend/migrations/ with exports.up/exports.down stubs — fill in pgm.sql(...) for both directions.

3. Configure environment variables

PowerShell:

$env:PGHOST = "localhost"
$env:PGPORT = "55432"
$env:PGUSER = "redefined_test"
$env:PGPASSWORD = "redefined_test"
$env:PGDATABASE = "redefined_test"
$env:PORT = "3000"
$env:DEMO_MODE = "true"
$env:UPLOADS_DIR = "$env:TEMP\redefined-uploads"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $env:UPLOADS_DIR | Out-Null

bash:

export PGHOST=localhost
export PGPORT=55432
export PGUSER=redefined_test
export PGPASSWORD=redefined_test
export PGDATABASE=redefined_test
export PORT=3000
export DEMO_MODE=true
export UPLOADS_DIR=/tmp/redefined-uploads
mkdir -p /tmp/redefined-uploads

DEMO_MODE=true enables a "Buy Now (Demo)" button on the storefront that completes a purchase without needing real PayPal credentials — useful for local development and for the Playwright tests below. To exercise real PayPal checkout locally, also set PAYPAL_CLIENT_ID, PAYPAL_CLIENT_SECRET, and PAYPAL_ENV=sandbox.

The server checks its configuration before it starts

server.ts validates the environment at boot, reports every problem at once, and exits rather than starting — the same reasoning as the container refusing to start on a failed migration. A missing variable used to be undefined until the first line of code that happened to need it, which could be long after the container reported healthy, and several of those failures were silent and customer-visible.

	Variables
Always required	DEMO_MODE, PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER, PGPASSWORD, PGDATABASE, UPLOADS_DIR
Required when DEMO_MODE=false	PAYPAL_CLIENT_ID, PAYPAL_CLIENT_SECRET, PAYPAL_WEBHOOK_ID, PAYPAL_ENV
Required when SMTP is configured	PUBLIC_URL, and SMTP_USER/SMTP_PASSWORD together
Warned about, but not fatal	SMTP absent, ADMIN_GATE_SECRET absent, MAIL_ALLOWLIST absent while SMTP is configured

DEMO_MODE must be exactly true or false. It used to mean "demo unless the value is exactly false", so DEMO_MODE=False, 0, or any typo left demo mode on — which meant the shop quietly stopped charging anyone. It is now required and strict, so a slip is a startup failure instead.

PUBLIC_URL is required only alongside SMTP because its only job is building links in email; an environment that cannot send mail does not need it. UPLOADS_DIR has no such reprieve — its fallback of /app/uploads is correct inside the container and wrong everywhere else.

Adding to the required list has reach beyond this repository. A variable added to ALWAYS_REQUIRED must also be set in every environment that deploys, and there are two of those. docker-compose.qa.yml is checked automatically — backend/tests/unit/composeEnvironment.test.ts reads the validator's own list and fails if the compose file does not set something on it, which is what #107 existed to prevent from recurring. Production runs from a Portainer stack outside this repository, so nothing can check it: that one has to be updated by hand, before the deploy rather than during it.

Note also that setting a variable in Portainer's stack environment is not the same as giving it to the container. Stack variables are interpolated into the compose file as ${VAR}; a service receives exactly what its own environment: block lists. A variable with no line there never arrives, however carefully it was set in the UI.

Note (PowerShell): environment variables set with $env: only last for the current terminal session/tab. If you close and reopen VS Code's terminal, you'll need to re-run step 3 before starting the backend again.

4. Run the backend

npm install
npm run dev

Runs on http://localhost:3000 with hot reload.

5. Run the frontend

Open a second terminal tab/window (the backend needs to keep running in the first one):

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Runs on http://localhost:5173 and proxies /api, /uploads, /webhooks to the backend on port 3000.

6. Open it

• Storefront: http://localhost:5173
• Admin: http://localhost:5173/admin

Note: locally, /admin is directly reachable with no login gate — the authentik SSO protection only exists in the deployed environment (Nginx Proxy Manager + authentik forward-auth), not in local dev.

Running tests

Backend unit tests

No database required.

cd backend
npm run test:unit

Backend integration tests

Exercises the real Express app against a real (disposable) Postgres instance via supertest.

cd backend
npm run db:test:up
npm run test:integration
npm run db:test:down   # when finished

Frontend Playwright e2e tests

Needs the backend running against a database with the schema loaded (steps 1–4 above), since these tests drive real registration/login/purchase flows through a live API.

cd frontend
npm install
npx playwright install --with-deps   # first time only — installs browser binaries
npm run test:e2e

CI

Gitea Actions runs two workflows on every push to main and on pull requests:

• SonarQube Analysis (.gitea/workflows/sonarqube.yml) — static analysis scan, plus TypeScript build checks for both backend and frontend
• Tests (.gitea/workflows/tests.yml) — backend unit tests, backend integration tests (against a disposable Postgres service container), and frontend Playwright e2e tests, each posting a results summary to the job's Summary tab in Gitea Actions

Branching and commits

• All changes go on a branch off main, named feature/<short-description> or fix/<short-description> — never commit directly to main
• Commit messages follow Conventional Commits syntax: feat:, fix:, chore:, docs:, test:, ci:, refactor:, etc.
• Branches are automatically deleted after a pull request is merged

Shipping a change

Every change follows the same path. QA is a required stop, not an optional one — production is not the place to discover that a deploy is wrong.

#	Step	Gate before moving on
1	Implement on a branch, verify locally	Unit, integration, and e2e suites pass; tsc --noEmit and npm run build clean
2	Commit and push	git branch -a --contains <sha> lists the pushed branch — a commit made after a push is silently left behind otherwise
3	Open a PR and merge to main	The merge commit contains the expected commits
4	Deploy to QA and review it	The change behaves as intended in a browser, behind authentik
5	Promote the reviewed image to production	Migrations recorded, data intact, deployed bundle is the new one
6	Stop the QA stack	—

Steps 4 and 5 are detailed under QA environment and Production deployment. Step 5 promotes the same image that was reviewed in QA, so what ships is what was tested.

Production deployment

Production runs as a single Docker image (multi-stage build — the frontend is built to static files and served directly by the backend), deployed via Portainer behind Nginx Proxy Manager, with authentik forward-auth gating /admin. That infrastructure is homelab-specific and documented separately outside this repo.

The container applies pending migrations before starting the server, so deployed code can never be ahead of the database schema. A failed migration stops the container rather than letting it serve against a schema it doesn't match — check docker logs on the app container if it doesn't come up.

The admin authorization boundary

Worth reading before adding any admin route, because the control is invisible from the code.

Authorization for the admin panel and the admin API lives in a single auth_request regex in the Nginx Proxy Manager config — ^/(admin|api/admin) in production, and location / in QA, where the whole site is gated. That config is not in this repository. Three consequences follow, and none of them are visible from Express:

• An admin route added at a path the regex does not match is not covered by it. /api/reports or /api/internal/... would be publicly reachable the moment it shipped.
• Anything that reaches the container directly bypasses authentik entirely, because the gate is in the proxy in front of it. QA publishes port 32751 on the NAS and production publishes its own.
• Locally there is no gate at all, so /admin and the whole admin API are open by design and no developer ever sees the boundary being enforced.

ADMIN_GATE_SECRET is the application-layer half of this, and it is optional:

State	Behaviour
Unset	Every admin route is reachable, exactly as before. The server logs an [admin-gate] warning at boot saying so, so the state is visible rather than silent. This is what local development and the test suite run in.
Set	Every admin router requires an X-Admin-Gate header matching the value, and returns 403 without it.

To turn it on, the secret has to be set in two places at once — the stack's environment, and a proxy_set_header X-Admin-Gate "<secret>"; line on the gated location in Nginx Proxy Manager. Setting it in only one of them makes the admin panel return 403 until the other catches up. That failure is loud and recoverable, unlike the one it replaces.

The middleware is attached to each admin router rather than to a path prefix. That is deliberate: an admin router added later at some other path inherits the gate, and because the proxy only injects the header on paths its regex matches, that router refuses on its first request rather than being quietly public. A 403 in that situation means the proxy regex needs widening — it is the boundary telling you it has drifted.

Promoting a reviewed change to production

Only after the change has been reviewed in QA.

# 1. Back up first — the container migrates the schema on its own.
sudo docker exec -t redefined-designs-db-syn pg_dump -U redefined -d redefined \
  > /volume1/configs/redefined-designs/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).sql
ls -lh /volume1/configs/redefined-designs/backup-*.sql   # size must be plausible

# 2. Promote the exact image QA reviewed, rather than rebuilding a second time.
sudo docker tag redefined-designs:qa redefined-designs:latest

# 3. Verify the image before touching the running container.
sudo docker inspect --format '{{.Config.Cmd}}' redefined-designs:latest
# must print: [sh -c node migrate.js up && node dist/server.js]

# 4. Recreate the container — restarting it would keep the old image.
sudo docker stop redefined-designs-syn
sudo docker rm redefined-designs-syn
# redeploy the stack in Portainer

# 5. Verify, in this order.
sudo docker logs redefined-designs-syn | head -30
#    migration output appears BEFORE "listening on 3000",
#    and "listening on 3000" appears exactly once (repeats = crash loop)

sudo docker exec -it redefined-designs-db-syn psql -U redefined -d redefined \
  -c "SELECT name, run_on FROM pgmigrations ORDER BY run_on;"
sudo docker exec -it redefined-designs-db-syn psql -U redefined -d redefined \
  -c "SELECT count(*) FROM items;"

# 6. Confirm the deployed artifact, not just the source.
sudo docker exec redefined-designs-syn sh -c "grep -l 'must have all' /app/public/assets/*.js"

Then load the storefront in a private window — aggressive bundle caching has produced false "still broken" reports on this project even after a correct deploy.

Rollback: migrations here have been additive, so the previous image still runs against the migrated schema — retag the old image and redeploy. Restoring the SQL dump is a last resort, not a first move.

QA environment

docker-compose.qa.yml defines a disposable QA stack for reviewing merged-but-undeployed changes online. It runs alongside production on the same NAS with its own containers, database, volumes, and host port, and is started only when a review is needed.

It differs from production deliberately: DEMO_MODE=true with no PayPal credentials (so checkout is exercisable but cannot reach live PayPal), no SMTP configuration (so it cannot email anyone), and restart: "no" (so a NAS reboot doesn't quietly bring it back up).

One-time setup on the NAS

Build the image before creating the stack. redefined-designs:qa exists only on the NAS — it is never pushed to a registry. If the stack is deployed first, Compose finds no local image, falls back to pulling from Docker Hub, and fails with a misleading pull access denied ... repository does not exist or may require 'docker login'.

cd /volume1/docker/redefined-designs
sudo docker build --no-cache -t redefined-designs:qa /volume1/docker/redefined-designs
sudo docker images | grep redefined-designs   # confirm the qa tag is present

For the same reason, leave Portainer's "Pull latest image" toggle off when deploying or redeploying this stack. The compose file sets pull_policy: never so a missing image reports itself as missing rather than as a registry authentication problem.

Next, create the directory structure. These paths are deliberately not under /volume1/configs/redefined-designs — sharing production's Postgres directory would mean QA writing into production's database files.

sudo mkdir -p /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/postgres
sudo mkdir -p /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/uploads

# The official postgres image runs as uid/gid 999. Without this the DB
# container exits immediately with a data-directory permissions error.
sudo chown -R 999:999 /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/postgres
sudo chmod 700 /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/postgres

# Uploads are written by the app container, which runs as root.
sudo chown -R root:root /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/uploads
sudo chmod 755 /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/uploads

# Confirm the two environments are separate before going further.
ls -la /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/
ls -la /volume1/configs/redefined-designs/

Then, in Portainer, create a stack named redefined-designs-qa from docker-compose.qa.yml, with one environment variable QA_DB_PASSWORD. The stack name matters: it becomes the compose project name, and reusing production's name would make compose reconcile the two stacks against each other and remove the production containers.

Finally, add an Nginx Proxy Manager host for qa-redefined-designs pointing at the NAS on port 32751, with authentik forward-auth on location / — the whole site, not just /admin, so nothing unreleased is publicly reachable.

Reviewing a change

cd /volume1/docker/redefined-designs
gitc() { sudo docker run --rm -it -v /volume1/docker/redefined-designs:/repo -v ~/.gitconfig-docker/.gitconfig:/root/.gitconfig -w /repo alpine/git "$@"; }
gitc pull origin main
gitc log --oneline -3

# Rebuild the QA image before restarting the stack — the stack does not build
# anything itself, and will otherwise run whatever was last tagged :qa.
sudo docker build --no-cache -t redefined-designs:qa /volume1/docker/redefined-designs
# start the redefined-designs-qa stack in Portainer

# Migrations run as the container starts — confirm before reviewing.
sudo docker logs redefined-designs-qa-syn | head -30

Stop the stack in Portainer when finished.

Resetting QA data

QA data is disposable. To start from an empty database, stop the stack first, then:

# Check the path before running this. It must contain -qa.
sudo rm -rf /volume1/configs/redefined-designs-qa/postgres/pgdata

Restarting the stack recreates the database and re-runs every migration from scratch.