A community for AI builders and indie hackers
Codú is a community for AI builders and indie hackers. Share what you're building, learn from people shipping real projects, and get support — whether it's a weekend experiment or a product you're taking to market. Write articles, post TILs, start discussions, ask questions, and find people to build with.
We have a fantastic community growing on Discord. Click here to join!
- Fork the project
- Clone with
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/codu.git. - Navigate to the project directory
cd codu. - Install dependencies with:
npm install- If you have any issues installing dependencies, check your node version against that defined in the
.nvmrc. If you're usingnvm, you can runnvm usebefore installing dependencies.
- Create a
.envfile and add the following variables. You can copy the contents ofsample.envwithcat sample.env > .env.
# This default value is if you run our local docker-compose.yml file to create the database.
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:secret@127.0.0.1:5432/postgres
# Setup your GitHub ID & Secret on GitHub: https://developer.github.com/apps/building-oauth-apps/authorizing-oauth-apps
# For development, make sure you set up this with a Homepage URL of http://localhost:3000/ and an Authorization callback URL of http://localhost:3000/api/auth
GITHUB_ID=YOUR_GITHUB_APP_ID
GITHUB_SECRET=YOUR_GITHUB_APP_SECRET
NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:3000/api/auth
For a more detailed guide on setting them up go to the Environment Variables section.
NOTE: Before proceeding, make sure your database is running.
- Setup the tables in the database with Drizzle by running:
npm run db:migrateThe full command can be seen in our package.json file.
Deploy note: the Vercel Build Command runs
npm run db:migrate && npm run ci-buildon every target, so both preview and production builds migrate — preview against the shared dev database, production against prod. A migration that fails aborts the build, so a branch carrying a broken or environment-incompatible migration turns the Vercel check red. Connections require SSL (sslmode=requireinDATABASE_URL) because the RDS instances run withrds.force_sslon; local dev and e2e use Docker over localhost and need none.
- Seed the database with some mock data by running:
npm run db:seedThe full command can be seen in our package.json file.
- Finally, run the development server:
npm run devAfter completion of the above commands, navigate to http://localhost:3000 in your browser to see the result.
The app uses the Next.js App Router — routes live in the app/ directory and hot-reload as you edit. The home feed is served from app/(app)/page.tsx.
API endpoints are Route Handlers under app/api/*, alongside the tRPC routers in server/.
The DATABASE_URL is a connection string to a PostgreSQL database (version 15).
By default, we point to a database running locally with Docker from our docker-compose.yml file.
To run this file, make sure you have Docker installed and that Docker is running.
Run the command docker compose up.
Alternatively, if you have PostgreSQL running locally, you can use your local connection string or grab one from a free service like Supabase.
docker compose up also starts Mailpit, a local email catcher. Set EMAIL_PROVIDER=local in your .env and every outgoing email (magic-link sign-in, moderation/report notifications) is captured at http://localhost:8027 instead of being sent through SES — no AWS credentials or real inboxes needed in development.
The email E2E spec (e2e/email.spec.ts) asserts delivery through Mailpit's API; it skips automatically when Mailpit isn't running. To include it: EMAIL_PROVIDER=local npm run dev:e2e (server) and EMAIL_PROVIDER=local npm test (tests).
Currently, we only allow authentication via GitHub. To enable this, you need to have a GITHUB_ID and GITHUB_SECRET value.
Set up your GitHub ID & Secret on GitHub:
- Click here to set up a New OAuth App and fill in the details as shown below.
For development, make sure you set this up with a Homepage URL of
http://localhost:3000/
and an Authorization callback URL of
http://localhost:3000/api/auth
After you click the "Register application" button, you should see the GITHUB_ID and be able to generate a new client secret. After generating the secret, make sure you copy this value to your .env file as this value cannot be seen again once you refresh the page.
More info on Authorizing OAuth in the GitHub documentation here.
In order to use Passwordless login locally, you need to have an ACCESS_KEY and SECRET_KEY value.
Check out the example .env file here to see how to populate these values.
Note: Currently, the AWS region of the SNS service is hardcoded to "eu-west-1"; it may be necessary to change this if your SNS service is in a different region.
You shouldn't need to change the default value here. This is a variable used by Next Auth as the authentication URL to your site.
NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:3000/api/auth
Example .env file can be found here. You can rename this to .env to get started.
- Contributions are greatly appreciated. Contributions make the open-source community an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create.
- Check out our contribution guidelines for contributing to our repo. It includes
- How to Contribute
- How to create a Pull Request
- Run Tests
- Style Guide for Commit Messages
To learn more about Next.js, take a look at the following resources:
- Next.js Documentation - learn about Next.js features and API.
- Learn Next.js - an interactive Next.js tutorial.
To learn about the editor shortcuts and hotkeys, you can check out this document:
For information on E2E testing, please refer to our dedicated documentation here.
You are welcome to open issues to discuss ideas about improving Codú. Enhancements are encouraged and appreciated.