Getting started

Prerequisites

In order to build and develop a Bootzooka-derived application you’ll need the following:

• Java JDK >= 21
• sbt >= 1.10
• Node.js >= 22 (We recommend nvm - node version manager)
• PostgreSQL

How to run

Because (as said before) Bootzooka consists of two separate applications, in development you need to run both separately. This way the server-side code can be reloaded independently of the frontend code: if, for example, you make a small change to an HTML file, thanks to live-reload you’ll see the changes immediately, rebuilding and reloading only the frontend part, while the server is running undisturbed.

NOTE: This is not the case in production by default. When the final Docker image is built it contains both client and server parts.

Database

Bootzooka uses PostgreSQL to store data, so you will need the database running to use the application. By default, Bootzooka uses the bootzooka database using the postgres user, connecting to a server running on localhost:5432. This can be customised in the application.conf file.

You can either use a stand-alone database, a docker image, or any other PostgreSQL instance.

Backend

To run the backend server part, enter the main directory and type ./backend-start.sh or backend-start.bat depending on your OS.

By default, when using the above startup script, OpenTelemetry is disabled to avoid telemetry export exceptions, as you might not have a collector running. If you do have one, edit the startp script appropriately.

The backend will start on http://localhost:8080. You can explore the API docs using the Swagger UI by navigating to http://localhost:8080/api/v1/docs.

When any source files change on the backend, it will be automatically restarted. Moreover, if there are new or changed endpoint definitions, the OpenAPI description will be regenerated, which is then used by the frontend to generate service stubs.

Frontend

First, create a ui/.env file, using the ui/.env.example. Unless you changed the port of the backend, the default value will be fine.

Then, use ./frontend-start.sh to start the frontend in development mode. This should open http://localhost:8081/ in your browser.

For details of frontend build and architecture please refer to the frontend docs.