Run it locally

This page is for a person who runs the editor on their own computer: to try it, to develop it, or before a deployment. To use an editor that somebody already runs, see Getting started.

The packages

Package	What it is
packages/web	The page: React Router as a single-page application, Tailwind v4 and HeroUI v3.
packages/api	The API: Hono on Node. It holds the routes /i18n/*, the catalogue, the proposals and the GitHub App.
packages/mcp	The typed client of the API, which the page also uses, the CLI, and an MCP server for agents.
packages/cli	The npm package @git8n/cli: the CLI and the MCP server of packages/mcp, in one file.
packages/db	The Drizzle schema of the tables, and their migrations.
docs	This site.

Start it

You need:

• Node 26 (see .node-version);
• pnpm 12 (corepack enable reads the version from package.json);
• a PostgreSQL server;
• a GitHub App, which signs a person in and reads and writes the repositories. For local work, create a second App whose callback URL is http://localhost:5173/api/auth/callback/github. The GitHub App says how.

pnpm install

# Create the tables.
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/i18n pnpm -F @git8n/db migrate

# Start the API on port 8001.
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/i18n \
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=<client ID of the GitHub App> \
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=<client secret of the GitHub App> \
ADMIN_EMAILS=you@example.com \
I18N_GITHUB_APP_ID=<id of the GitHub App> \
I18N_GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY="$(cat app.private-key.pem)" \
pnpm -F @git8n/api dev

# Start the page on port 5173. Vite passes /api and /i18n to the API.
pnpm -F @git8n/web dev

Open http://localhost:5173, the address of BETTER_AUTH_URL, and not the port of the API: the session cookie belongs to the address that the browser reads.

To sign in before the App exists, ask for a link by email with an address of ADMIN_EMAILS. Without SMTP_URL, the API sends no mail. Outside production, it writes the link in its log. Open that link. You then reach « Brancher un dépôt », which needs the App.

Then follow Getting started from step 2.

Deploy lists every variable of the API.

Checks

pnpm typecheck
pnpm test
pnpm -F @git8n/docs demo  # the demo of the home page, built once
pnpm -F @git8n/docs dev   # this site, on port 5208

The tests of the API run on PGlite, a PostgreSQL in memory. They need no server.