Local setup

The whole stack runs under Podman with the same compose topology used in production. There is no separate “dev mode” arrangement to learn.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Needed for
Podman	5+	Everything.
podman-compose	1.5.0	The compose front end. See the note below.
Rust	1.83+	Working on api/ outside the container
Bun	1.1+	Working on web/ or docs/ outside the container
sqlx-cli	0.8	Creating migrations, preparing offline query data
psql	16+	Poking at the database. Optional but you will want it.

The container images build everything they need, so you can run the full stack with only Podman. The toolchains above are for iterating on a single service without a rebuild each time.

Use `podman-compose`, not `podman compose`

They are different programs and the difference bites.

podman-compose (hyphenated) is the native Python implementation. It is what this project targets, and 1.5.0 is the pinned version.

podman compose (spaced) is a thin shim that looks for an external compose provider and, on a machine with Docker Desktop installed, shells out to Docker Desktop’s provider — so you end up running the stack under Docker while believing you are running it under Podman. Different socket, different network backend, different behaviour, and a confusing afternoon.

Every command on this page uses the hyphenated form.

First run

1. Create your environment file.

   cp .env.example .env

   Three values have no default and compose will refuse to start without them: POSTGRES_PASSWORD, SESSION_PEPPER, and S3_SECRET_KEY. That is on purpose — a stack that boots with a blank pepper is a stack that will eventually ship with a blank pepper.

2. Generate the secrets.

   ./ops/gen-secrets.sh >> .env

   The script emits 32 random bytes, base64-encoded, for each required secret. If you would rather do it by hand:

   bash

   echo "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env
   echo "SESSION_PEPPER=$(openssl rand -base64 32)"    >> .env
   echo "S3_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)"     >> .env

   PowerShell

   function New-Secret {
     $b = [byte[]]::new(32)
     [System.Security.Cryptography.RandomNumberGenerator]::Fill($b)
     [Convert]::ToBase64String($b)
   }
   "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(New-Secret)" | Add-Content .env
   "SESSION_PEPPER=$(New-Secret)"    | Add-Content .env
   "S3_SECRET_KEY=$(New-Secret)"     | Add-Content .env

   Do not rotate SESSION_PEPPER casually

   token_key is SHA-256(pepper || raw_token). Change the pepper and every existing session stops resolving — everyone is logged out. That is the correct behaviour, and it is worth knowing before you regenerate your .env on a shared environment.

3. Bring the stack up.

   podman-compose up --build

   If you are on a Docker host instead, docker compose up --build reads the same docker-compose.yml unchanged.

   Order is enforced by healthchecks, so nothing races:

   db (healthy) ──▶ migrate (runs once, exits 0) ──▶ api (healthy) ──▶ web
   cache (healthy) ─────────────────────────────────┘
   storage (healthy) ──▶ storage-init (creates the bucket, exits 0)

   migrate is a one-shot that applies the eight migrations in api/migrations/ and exits. It is a service_completed_successfully dependency of api and worker, so nothing serves traffic against an unmigrated schema. Migrations never run from app boot.

   Migration	Adds
   0001_extensions_and_roles.sql	Extensions, app/catalog schemas, app.current_tenant_id(), app.apply_tenant_rls(), runtime roles
   0002_catalog.sql	Global vendor catalog: styles, colors, variants, prices, inventory, sync runs
   0003_identity.sql	Tenants, users, roles, memberships, sessions, tokens, vendor accounts
   0004_shop.sql	Companies, customers, addresses, deals, line items, size runs
   0005_design.sql	Designs, versions, assets, imprints, approvals
   0006_jobs_and_audit.sql	Job queue, transactional outbox, partitioned audit log, external refs
   0007_size_reference_data.sql	Canonical sizes, the vendor alias map, catalog.resolve_size()
   0008_rls_audit.sql	app.rls_exemptions and app.rls_audit() — the self-checking isolation guarantee

4. Confirm it is up.

   curl -s localhost:8080/health/ready | jq
   # { "status": "ok", "checks": { "postgres": "ok", "valkey": "ok" } }
   
   open http://localhost:3000     # the app
   open http://localhost:4321     # these docs
   open http://localhost:9001     # MinIO console

Ports

Everything binds to 127.0.0.1, never 0.0.0.0. Publishing a development database to your local network is how a dev Postgres ends up on Shodan.

Service	URL	What it is
web	http://localhost:3000	SvelteKit on Bun — the app
api	http://localhost:8080	Rust API. Published for debugging only.
docs	http://localhost:4321	This site
db	localhost:5432	Postgres 17
cache	localhost:6379	Valkey 8
storage	http://localhost:9000	MinIO S3 endpoint
MinIO UI	http://localhost:9001	MinIO console — log in with S3_* from .env

POSTGRES_PORT and VALKEY_PORT in .env move the two that most often collide with something already running.

Environment reference

.env.example

# ---------------------------------------------------------------- required
POSTGRES_DB=platyn
POSTGRES_USER=platyn
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=

# 32+ bytes, base64. Peppers the session token hash so a stolen DB dump
# alone cannot be used to forge session lookups.
SESSION_PEPPER=

# MinIO / S3
S3_ACCESS_KEY=platyn
S3_SECRET_KEY=

# ---------------------------------------------------------------- optional
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
VALKEY_PORT=6379
RUST_LOG=info,platyn=debug,sqlx::query=warn

# ---------------------------------------------------------------- vendors
# Platform-level catalog credentials. The catalog is global (ADR-04), so these
# belong to the platform, not to any tenant. Leave blank to run without live
# vendor sync — the seed fixture provides a usable local catalog.
SS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER=
SS_API_KEY=
SANMAR_CUSTOMER_NUMBER=
SANMAR_USERNAME=
SANMAR_PASSWORD=

The API reads configuration through figment with a PLATYN__ prefix and __ as the nesting separator, so PLATYN__DATABASE__URL sets database.url. Compose sets those directly; the root .env only holds the handful of values compose itself interpolates.

Running without vendor credentials

Leave the SS_* and SANMAR_* values blank. The seed fixture loads a representative slice of the catalog — a few brands, a few hundred styles, real size and color data — which is enough to build and test against. Live sync is only needed when you are working on the sync itself.

Everyday commands

# tail one service
podman-compose logs -f api

# rebuild just the API after a Rust change
podman-compose up -d --build api

# re-run migrations after adding one
podman-compose run --rm migrate

# a psql shell
podman-compose exec db psql -U platyn -d platyn

# seed the local catalog fixture
podman-compose exec api /usr/local/bin/platyn-cli seed --fixture catalog-slim

# confirm tenant isolation is intact — must print zero rows
podman-compose exec db psql -U platyn -d platyn -c 'SELECT * FROM app.rls_audit();'

# start over completely (destroys the volumes)
podman-compose down -v

Rootless Podman and the loopback bind

Rootless Podman cannot bind ports below 1024, which is fine — every published port here is well above that. If podman-compose down -v leaves volumes behind, podman volume prune clears them; Podman is stricter than Docker about volumes still referenced by a stopped container.

Working on one service natively

The container stack is the source of truth, but an inner loop through a Docker build is miserable. Run the dependencies in Docker and the service you are editing on the host.

api

podman-compose up -d db cache storage storage-init migrate

cd api
export PLATYN__DATABASE__URL='postgres://platyn:<password>@localhost:5432/platyn'
export PLATYN__VALKEY__URL='redis://localhost:6379'
export PLATYN__AUTH__SESSION_PEPPER='<pepper from .env>'
export PLATYN__STORAGE__ENDPOINT='http://localhost:9000'
cargo run --bin platyn-api

cargo watch -x 'run --bin platyn-api' if you want it reloading.

web

podman-compose up -d api

cd web
bun install
PLATYN_API_URL=http://localhost:8080 bun run dev   # :5173 with HMR

docs

cd docs
bun install
bun run dev     # :4321, hot reload

bun run dev runs scripts/sync-openapi.ts first, which stages the OpenAPI document and the Scalar bundle into public/.

Connecting as the right database role

Migrations create two NOBYPASSRLS runtime roles. The compose POSTGRES_USER is the owner and, for casual psql use, that is fine — but anything testing tenant isolation must connect as platyn_app, because the owner is the one identity for which a mistake in the policy set would not show up.

SET ROLE platyn_app;
SELECT set_config('platyn.tenant_id', '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001', false);
SELECT count(*) FROM app.memberships;   -- only that tenant's rows

RESET ROLE;

FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY means even the owner is subject to policies, but the SET ROLE habit is still worth having. See ADR-03.

Repository layout

• Directoryplatyn

  • .env.example
  • docker-compose.yml
  • Directoryapi/ Rust workspace

    • Cargo.toml
    • Directorymigrations/ 0001_extensions_and_roles.sql, 0002_catalog.sql, 0003_identity.sql

      • …
    • Directorycrates/ platyn-core, platyn-db, platyn-catalog, platyn-identity, …

      • …
    • Directorybins/ platyn-api, platyn-worker, platyn-cli

      • …
  • Directoryweb/ SvelteKit on Bun

    • …
  • Directorydocs/ this site

    • astro.config.mjs
    • openapi.placeholder.json
    • scripts/sync-openapi.ts
    • Directorysrc/content/docs/

      • …
  • Directoryops/

    • gen-secrets.sh
    • Directorypostgres/init/

      • …

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause and fix
set POSTGRES_PASSWORD in .env	Compose’s :? guard fired. You have no .env, or the value is blank.
migrate exits non-zero	Read its logs before anything else — api and worker will not start until it succeeds. Usually a SQL error in the newest migration.
Every query returns zero rows	Working as intended: platyn.tenant_id is unset, so RLS admits nothing. Call the tenant transaction helper, or set_config in psql.
api healthy, web cannot reach it	Inside the compose network the API is http://api:8080, not localhost:8080. Check PLATYN_API_URL.
Port already allocated	Change POSTGRES_PORT / VALKEY_PORT in .env, or stop whatever is holding the port.
Artwork upload fails with a signature error	storage-init did not run. podman-compose up storage-init to create and version the platyn-artwork bucket.
Docs build fails on the OpenAPI step	api/openapi.json exists but is malformed. Delete it to fall back to the committed placeholder, or fix the generator.
Everyone got logged out	SESSION_PEPPER changed. Existing token_key values no longer match. Expected.