Installation Steps:

To set up the backend, first make sure that Python and Pip are installed. Then run the following the commands in your terminal:

$ cd api
$ python3 -m venv venv          # creates virtual environment
$ source ./venv/bin/activate    # activate virtual environment
(venv)$ pip3 install -r ../requirements.txt         # installs requirements
(venv)$ flask run —no-debugger  # starts the backend

To set up the frontend, first make sure that Node and NPM are installed. Then run the following commands:

$ cd frontend
$ npm install

Development Steps:

How to run our app as a two-server process which makes frontend development much nicer.

# run the backend
cd api
venv/bin/flask run --no-debugger

# *in a separate terminal* run the frontend
cd frontend
npm start

Visit http://localhost:3000 in the browser.

How to simulate the production environment as a one-server app.

# ---build the frontend---
cd frontend
npm run build # build frontend

# ---run the server---
cd api
venv/bin/gunicorn app:app

Visit http://localhost:8000 in the browser.

How to activate venv:

cd api
source venv/bin/activate

Deployment Steps:

Build the frontend first, then push to main branch

# ---build the frontend---
cd frontend
npm run build # build frontend