Do not push to the master branch, instead create seperate branches for development, for example feature-chat, when features are completed we can then merge the branches as a group to avoid conflicts.
To run use the command npm run start in the root directory.
An .env file is needed to hold environment variables, such as database passwords and ports. The example.env can be used as a template for the .env file.
For database credentials contact George, for JWT_SECRET run openssl rand -base64 33.
If you have never run it then you will need to run npm install in the root directory to install all the dependencies, this will need to be rerun if any dependencies change.
We are using Node.js v16.13.2, there are many ways to install Node.js, you can use whichever one you want. My favourite is n, a simple tool for installing and switching Node.js versions.
To install Node.js on the VM (or any Debian/Ubuntu based OS, including Windows Subsystem for Linux) using n run the following commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install npm
sudo npm install -g n
sudo n v16.13.2
hash -r
Then the command node -v should return the correct version: v16.13.2.