Add CONTRIBUTING.md

[yordis]

Hey folks, I wonder if adding at least the minimal setup to contribute to the Front End app is possible.

The app is up and running with npm install and npm run dev, but I am unsure how to set up the Lattice. I have the Elixir-based runtime, so I wonder if this is only for the Rust one or how I should run the runtime so I can focus on the UI.

Ideally, docker compose up -d and I get to focus on the frontend.

[connorsmith256]

Hi @yordis, which of these are you looking for? 1) guidelines on how the wasmCloud org handles contributions 2) setup instructions for how to run a wasmCloud host 3) instructions for how to iterate on the new dashboard UI locally 4) something else? 🙂

For 1), you can check out the top-level contributing guide For 2), you'll want to install wash and then run wash up For 3), I believe you can run npm i && npm run dev from the wash/packages/washboard directory

[yordis]

instructions for how to iterate on the new dashboard UI locally

That ^

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Probably a good idea if I remove my docker, compose setup. Document for the usage wash up vs. docker-compose setups, vs. local build

For 3), I believe you can run npm i && npm run dev from the wash/packages/washboard directory

What would help here is to document the ports somewhere. Maybe they already exist (sorry if I missed them), or at the very least, in the frontend README.md, whatever port I should put to connect to the nats.ws web socket.

Is that Front End Nats web socket a connection directly to Nats?

[connorsmith256]

Understood, and thanks for the feedback 🙌 I like the idea of adding a README/DEVELOPMENT for the washboard directory, and/or calling this out from wash's README/DEVELOPMENT page(s). @lachieh what do you think?

For your immediate questions:

• the washboard development lifecycle is handled by vite, where the default port is 5173
• the washboard connects to a NATS server at ws://localhost:4001 by default, although this can be overridden via the UI
• to specify a websocket port when starting wasmCloud via wash, you'll want to include the --nats-websocket-port option

All this information should definitely be documented 😅

[lachieh]

A README and a DEVELOPMENT guide inside the washboard folder and a section in the root README regarding the UI would be beneficial, yeah.

@yordis if you want to update your setup, the NATS_WEBSOCKET_PORT env variable will determine if the nats websocket is started and on which port it attaches. There isn't a container for the UI, but you could probably serve up the static files with nginx.

As @connorsmith256 mentioned, the build is handled by vite, which you can start in dev mode (hotreloading, etc) with npm run dev.

[brooksmtownsend]

Closed by #735