End Point Timesheet

Time tracking and reporting. A Rails 8 JSON API (backend/) and a React frontend (frontend/).

Run it

cp .env.example .env
make dev-build

Open http://localhost:8080 and sign in as admin@example.com / please1234.

If that first login says your password is wrong, it isn't — just sign in again. The first request after the server starts always fails authentication. This is a known issue. Nothing is misconfigured, and the second attempt works.

That's the whole setup. The first run takes a few minutes: it builds both images, then loads the schema, reference data, and demo seed into an empty database. Later runs skip all of that — make dev is enough once the images exist.

Once it's up:

• Frontend: http://localhost:8080
• API: http://localhost:8088/api/
• Postgres: localhost:55432

/ on port 8088 returns 500. Rails serves the API only; port 8080 serves the app.

Other targets: make logs, make dev-down, make dev-clean (drops the database volume), make dev-config (print the resolved compose file).

What runs where

docker-compose.yml at the root defines three services:

• db — Postgres 16.
• backend — Rails, at backend/. Built from the dev stage of backend/Dockerfile. Loads the database on first run, then serves /api. Your source is bind-mounted, so edits reload.
• frontend — the React dev server, at frontend/. Built from the dev stage of frontend/Dockerfile. Your source is bind-mounted, so edits reload, and it forwards /api to the backend (src/setupProxy.js).

Previews and production do not run that dev server. They serve a compiled bundle from nginx — the last stage of the same Dockerfile, with the proxying done by nginx/default.conf. That is what CI builds and what docker-compose.preview.yml deploys.

You can also run the dev server on your machine rather than in the stack: npm start in frontend/ proxies /api to port 8088 against the same containers. See frontend/README.md.

Change a Gemfile or package.json and you need make dev-build.

Tests

make test-db   # one-time: create the test DB, load the schema, build matviews
make test      # RSpec
make coverage  # RSpec with SimpleCov -> backend/coverage/index.html

These work from backend/ too — that Makefile delegates here.

Previews and deploys

.gitlab-ci.yml builds both images on every pipeline and, for a merge request, hands them to Coolify through scripts/coolify-preview.py, which stands up a per-MR environment from docker-compose.preview.yml. That file is standalone on purpose: Coolify deploys exactly one compose file and does not merge overlays. Production deploys are deliberately not wired up yet.

Scope

docker-compose.yml is for working on the app, not for running it in production. It builds images on your machine and mounts your source, neither of which belongs on a server. The preview and production paths pull prebuilt, tagged images instead.

The safe defaults are kept anyway, because they cost nothing: the production image runs as a non-root user, no .env is baked into an image, and image tags are pinned. DATABASE_PASSWORD has no default — compose refuses to start without a .env — so nothing ships with a password that was committed.

More

• backend/README.md — backend details, test suite, troubleshooting
• frontend/README.md — frontend, Playwright e2e suite, camp deploys
• testing/checklist.md — the manual test checklist, and how to judge a run

License

MIT. See LICENSE.