Setup

This guide walks you through installing Python and Pipenv, configuring AWS credentials, and setting up Supabase locally with Docker.

Python (and Pipenv)

Zap is built using Python 3.9. Ensure it’s installed:

python3 --version

To manage dependencies, we use Pipenv, a virtual environment tool.

Install it via pip:

pip install --user pipenv

Verify installation:

pipenv --version

AWS CLI & Credentials

Zap uses multiple AWS services. Before interacting with them:

Installation

Follow directions at AWS CLI

Configure AWS CLI

aws configure

Ask a member of the PCT Tech Team for the credentials.

How to confirm your AWS credentials

Run the following:

cat ~/.aws/credentials

Verify that the access keys match the IAM console on AWS. Or simply confirm with the PCT Tech Team member who gave you them.

Do not share your credentials with anyone.

Example config:

AWS Access Key ID [****************]: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
AWS Secret Access Key [****************]: YOUR_SECRET_KEY
Default region name [us-east-1]: us-east-1
Default output format [json]: json

Supabase

As of dev/v4.0, Zap uses Supabase for its database, replacing DynamoDB and MongoDB. You’ll run a local Supabase stack using Docker.

Docker Desktop and Supabase CLI

Install Docker Desktop
Install Supabase CLI

Important: Do not run supabase init. Supabase is already initialized in the zap repo.

Navigate to the `zap` directory

cd zap

Start the Supabase local stack

supabase start

If successful, you’ll see URLs and keys printed to your terminal:

Started supabase local development setup.

         API URL: http://127.0.0.1:54321
     GraphQL URL: http://127.0.0.1:54321/graphql/v1
  S3 Storage URL: http://127.0.0.1:54321/storage/v1/s3
          DB URL: postgresql://postgres:postgres@127.0.0.1:54322/postgres
      Studio URL: http://127.0.0.1:54323
      JWT secret: ...
        anon key: ...
service_role key: ...

Create `.env.local`:

Copy your API URL and anon key from above into the following file.

# zap/.env.local
SUPABASE_URL=<API URL>
SUPABASE_KEY=<anon key>

⚠️

This file must NOT be committed to source control.

Stop Supabase

When you are done using the backend, be sure to stop Supabase.

supabase stop

Do I really need to run supabase stop?

Technically, you can quit Docker Desktop directly to stop the services, but running supabase stop is safer to avoid corruption or orphaned containers.

Just make sure to fully quit Docker Desktop or your CPU will want to kill you 😡.

Zap Development