browsertrix/frontend/docs/docs/develop/frontend-dev.md

Developing with Yarn

This guide explains how to build and serve the Browsertrix user interface with Yarn.

Developing the user interface with Yarn bypasses the need to rebuild the entire frontend Docker image to view your UI changes. This setup is ideal for rapid UI development that does not rely on any backend changes.

Requirements

1. Browsertrix API backend already in a Kubernetes cluster

The frontend development server requires an existing backend that has been deployed locally or is in production. See Deploying Browsertrix.

Once deployed, make note of the URL to the backend API. If you've deployed the backend locally using default values, the URL will be http://localhost:30870.

2. Node.js ≥20

To check if you already have Node.js installed, run the following command in your command line terminal:

node --version

You should see a version number like v20.17.0. If you see a command line error instead of a version number, install Node.js before continuing.

??? question "What if my other project requires a different version of Node.js?"

You can use [Node Version Manager](https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager#nvm) to install multiple Node.js versions and switch versions between projects.

3. Yarn 1 (Classic)

To verify your Yarn installation:

yarn --version

If your Yarn version starts with 1 (e.g. 1.22.22) you're good to go.

If Yarn isn't installed, install Yarn 1 (Classic).

If your Yarn version is 2.0 or greater, run the following from your Browsertrix project directory to enable Yarn 1:

cd frontend
corepack enable
corepack install

Check out the full Yarn + Corepack installation guide for more details.

Quickstart

From the command line, change your current working directory to /frontend:

cd frontend

!!! note

From this point on, all commands in this guide should be run from the `frontend` directory.

Install UI dependencies:

yarn install

Copy environment variables from the sample file:

cp sample.env.local .env.local

Update API_BASE_URL in .env.local to point to your backend API URL noted earlier. For example, if connecting to your local deployment cluster:

API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:30870

??? info "Port when using Minikube (on macOS)"

When using Minikube on macOS, the port will not be 30870. Instead, Minikube opens a tunnel to a random port,
obtained by running `minikube service browsertrix-cloud-frontend --url` in a separate terminal.

Set API_BASE_URL to provided URL instead, eg. `API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:<TUNNEL_PORT>`

!!! note

This setup assumes that your API endpoints are available under `/api`, which is the default configuration for the Browsertrix backend.

Start the frontend development server:

yarn start

This will open localhost:9870 in a new tab in your default browser.

Saving changes to files in src will automatically reload your browser window with the latest UI updates.

To stop the development server type ++ctrl+c++ into your command line terminal.

Scripts

yarn <name>
start	runs app in development server, reloading on file changes
test	runs tests in chromium with playwright
build-dev	bundles app and outputs it in dist directory
build	bundles app, optimized for production, and outputs it to dist
lint	find and fix auto-fixable javascript errors
format	formats js, html, and css files
localize:extract	generate XLIFF file to be translated
localize:build	output a localized version of strings/templates

Testing

Tests assertions are written in Chai.

To watch for file changes while running tests:

yarn test --watch

To run tests in multiple browsers:

yarn test --browsers chromium firefox webkit