Technovation Challenge Platform

Technovation is a global tech education nonprofit that empowers girls to become leaders, creators and problem-solvers.

QA:

Master:

Production:

We use BrowserStack to test for cross-browser compatibility so that we can support a worldwide community of volunteers!

Rails Docs:

Rails 7 documentation

Installation and Setup

Prerequisites

macOS

Install homebrew

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Install asdf, ruby 3.1.2, nodejs

brew install asdf

asdf plugin-add ruby
asdf plugin-add nodejs

asdf install ruby 3.1.2
asdf install nodejs <latest-version>

Make sure XCode is installed.

Under Xcode preferences locations, make sure there is a version set.

Install redis (follow the post-install instructions)

brew install redis

Install postgresql (follow the post-install instructions)

brew install postgresql
createuser -s postgres

Install imagemagick

brew install imagemagick

Install pdftk

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.11-setup.pkg

Install wkhtmltopdf

Install as appropriate for your environment, and make sure to set WKHTMLTOPDF_PATH in your .env file to point to the tool.

Install the rails application

git clone git@github.com:Iridescent-CM/technovation-app.git

For the most up-to-date ENV settings, copy them from the Heroku QA envirnoment.

Switch to ruby 3.1.2 (this creates the .tool-versions file and you won't have to do it again) Switch to nodejs

asdf local ruby 3.1.2
asdf local nodejs <latest-version>

Run the rails setup file

./bin/setup

Ensure the test suite can run without errors:

rake

Run the local server

rails s

Navigate to http://localhost:3000

To compile and hot reload assets, run the following in a new terminal window

./bin/shakapacker-dev-server

Docker

You can run the app with Docker Compose instead of installing Ruby, Node, Postgres, and Redis locally. The stack uses Dockerfile at the repo root and docker-compose.yml.

What runs

Service	Role
web	Rails server on port 3000 (source mounted from your machine)
worker	Sidekiq (default and mailers queues)
postgres	PostgreSQL 14; user/password postgres / postgres
redis	Redis 7

Compose sets DATABASE_URL, REDIS_URL, RAILS_ENV, RACK_ENV, and WKHTMLTOPDF_PATH for the app containers. You still need a .env file in the project root for other secrets and config (same as the native setup above).

Prerequisites

• Docker with Compose (v2: docker compose).

First-time setup

1. Clone the repo and place .env in the project root.

2. Build and start everything:

   docker compose up --build
   

3. In another terminal, prepare the database (migrations, etc.) once:

   docker compose exec web bundle exec rails db:prepare
   

   Add seed data if your team uses it:

   docker compose exec web bundle exec rails db:seed
   

Open http://localhost:3000. Postgres is also published on 5432 and Redis on 6379 on localhost if you need them from tools outside Docker.

Image details (Dockerfile)

• Base image: Ruby 3.4.9 (slim), aligned with the Gemfile Ruby version.
• Node 26 and Yarn for the front end; bundle install and yarn install run at build time.
• System packages include build tools, libpq, ImageMagick, pdftk-java, wkhtmltopdf (amd64/arm64), and libraries used by native gems (e.g. node-canvas).
• Default image command (without Compose overriding it) runs rails db:prepare then rails s on 0.0.0.0:3000. Ports 3000 and 3035 are declared for the app and Webpack dev server.

Compose behavior

• web mounts the repo at /app with a named volume for Bundler (bundle) and another for node_modules so installs persist between runs.
• worker uses the same image and volumes and connects to the same DB and Redis.
• postgres uses a healthcheck so web and worker start after the DB is ready.

Assets in Docker

For Webpack dev server with hot reload, run it inside the web container and publish port 3035 (add 3035:3035 under web.ports in docker-compose.yml if it is not already there), then:

docker compose exec web ./bin/shakapacker-dev-server -b 0.0.0.0

Builds and secrets (.dockerignore)

.dockerignore keeps .env and other local files out of the image build context so secrets are not baked into layers. With Compose, your working tree is still bind-mounted into /app, so the app reads .env from the host at runtime.

User type logins:

Seeded users:

• Student

  • username: student@student.com
  • password: student@student.com

• Mentor

  • username: mentor@mentor.com
  • password: mentor@mentor.com

• Judge

  • username: judge@judge.com
  • password: judge@judge.com

• Chapter Ambassador

  • username: chapter-ambassador@chapter-ambassador.com
  • password: chapter-ambassador@chapter-ambassador.com

• Admin

  • username: admin@admin.com
  • password: admin@admin.com

To turn on/off various user features:

• Login as the admin
• Go to "Content & Settings"
• Toggle what you need on or off

Tests

Technovation uses RSpec, and you can run the entire test suite just by entering the command rake

rake

JavaScript tests

Plain JS modules and Vue components are tested with Vitest and @vue/test-utils (Vue 2 line). Tests live in spec/javascript/, mirroring the structure of app/javascript/.

yarn test          # run once (CI mode)
yarn test:watch    # watch mode for local development

The test tooling is intentionally pinned to Vue 2.6-compatible versions (vitest@0.34.6, vite@4, vite-plugin-vue2) as devDependencies only — production dependencies (including vue@2.6.11) are unchanged.

Current coverage focuses on critical-path business logic:

• Age/division cutoff helpers (utilities/age-helpers)
• Judge scoring completeness rules (Vuex getters/actions)
• Registration readiness and profile validation (Vuex getters)
• Key Vue components: ScoreEntry, QuestionSection, BasicProfile, LocationForm

JS unit tests run in CircleCI on parallel node 0, after ESLint and before the database setup step.