Getting Started

Getting the school website running is a ten-minute job once you know the two things the README won't tell you: this project runs on pnpm (not npm), and it needs a global CLI that isn't in package.json. Get those right and everything else is the usual install, .env, dev rhythm.

Before you start, hold one mental model in your head: the repo root is really two projects in one folder. The thing you boot here is the website frontend — React Router v7 in SSR mode, served by Vite on port 5173. The Sanity Studio lives in sanity/ with its own lockfile and its own dev server, and you start it separately. This page gets the frontend up; the Studio gets one step at the end and its own Setup page.

Step 1: Check your toolchain

Three tools need to be in place before you clone. None of them are pinned in the repo (there's no .nvmrc, engines, or packageManager field), so the versions below are convention — match them and you'll match production.

The cleanest way to get the right pnpm is Corepack, which ships with Node and pins the version for you:

corepack enable
corepack prepare pnpm@11 --activate

Step 2: Install the global codegen CLI

This is the step everyone misses. The site's typed API client is generated by a CLI called chowbea-axios, and that CLI is installed globally — it is not in package.json and won't appear in node_modules/.bin after pnpm install.

Install it once, globally:

pnpm add -g chowbea-axios

Step 3: Install frontend dependencies

From the repo root, the standard install pulls every frontend dependency:

pnpm install

This also runs the prepare script (husky) to wire up git hooks. Heads up: the only hook is a no-op — it echoes and exits, so it won't format or lint for you on commit. That's covered in Troubleshooting & Gotchas.

Step 4: Create your .env

The frontend reads its config from environment variables, all prefixed VITE_* so Vite exposes them to the browser. There's no template to copy, so you'll create the file by hand.

Create a .env at the repo root with these essentials. They split into a few clear groups — the backend URL, the Sanity connection, and a couple of feature toggles:

# --- Backend API (feeds the generated axios client) ---
VITE_API_URL=https://tunnel.chowbea.com
VITE_BASE_API_URL=https://tunnel.chowbea.com

# --- Sanity (must match the Studio's hardcoded values) ---
VITE_SANITY_PROJECT_ID=hdefozzv
VITE_SANITY_DATASET=development
VITE_SANITY_API_VERSION=2024-01-01
VITE_SANITY_WRITE_TOKEN=your-sanity-write-token

# --- App environment (drives the log level) ---
VITE_NODE_ENV=development

# --- Naalya-AI chat timers, in seconds (no defaults — set both) ---
VITE_NAALYA_AI_ACTIVE_TIME=300
VITE_NAALYA_AI_COOLDOWN_TIME=600

The few that actually matter for booting: VITE_API_URL is the backend the axios client points at, and the VITE_SANITY_* block is your CMS connection. PostHog analytics keys (VITE_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_*) are optional — leave them out until you need analytics. For the exhaustive inventory of every variable and where each is read, see The Stack.

There's one Vite subtlety worth internalizing now: VITE_* values are baked into the bundle at build time. In dev that's invisible, but it means you can't change them on a running production server — you rebuild. Keep it in mind for later.

Step 5: Start the dev server

With dependencies and .env in place, you're ready to boot:

pnpm dev

This runs react-router dev --host. Open http://localhost:5173 — that's the Vite default, and vite.config.ts doesn't override it. The --host flag also exposes the server on your LAN IP (0.0.0.0), handy for testing on a phone.

That's the site running. The other script you'll reach for is pnpm dev:all, which runs the API watcher and Vite together so the client regenerates whenever the backend spec changes — but you only need it when you're touching the API, so it's parked in The API Client.

Step 6: Run the Sanity Studio (separately)

The Studio is the second project in the folder, and because it's outside the workspace you install and run it from inside sanity/ with its own commands:

cd sanity
pnpm install      # uses the Studio's own lockfile
pnpm dev          # runs `sanity dev` on http://localhost:3333

The Studio opens on http://localhost:3333 and connects to the same hdefozzv / development project your frontend reads. You don't need it running to develop most pages — but you do need it to edit content, and to create any singleton documents (like the homepage) that the frontend expects to exist.

Full Studio configuration, the Google Drive asset source, and the tooling differences (the Studio uses Prettier + ESLint, not Biome) all live in Sanity Setup.

You're running — now what?

A quick recap of the four things that actually matter on day one:

Where to go next