cve-dashboard/.kiro/steering/tech.md

Tech Stack & Build System

Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Node.js 18+, Express 5
Database	PostgreSQL (via pg pool in backend/db.js)
Auth	bcryptjs, cookie-based sessions (httpOnly, 24h expiry)
File uploads	Multer 2 (10MB limit)
Frontend	React 19 (Create React App / react-scripts 5)
Frontend serving	Express serves frontend/build/ as static files on port 3001
UI Icons	lucide-react
Charts	recharts
Spreadsheet parsing	xlsx (frontend), pandas + openpyxl (backend Python scripts)
Markdown rendering	react-markdown
Diagrams	mermaid

Architecture: Single-Port Serving

Express on port 3001 serves both the API and the production frontend build:

• API routes: /api/* — handled by Express route handlers
• Frontend: everything else — served as static files from frontend/build/

There is no separate frontend server in production. The React dev server (npm start on port 3000) is only for local development with hot-reload. In production and on the dev server, you must run npm run build in frontend/ after any frontend code change, then restart the backend.

After editing frontend source files:

cd frontend && npm run build    # Compile new bundle into frontend/build/
# Then restart backend (or it will serve the new static files on next request)

The CI/CD pipeline handles this automatically — build-frontend stage runs before deploy.

Common Commands

Backend

cd backend
node setup.js          # Initialize DB, tables, indexes, default admin user
node server.js         # Start backend on port 3001 (serves API + frontend build)

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install            # Install dependencies
npm run build          # Production build → frontend/build/ (REQUIRED after code changes)
npm start              # Dev server on port 3000 (local dev only, NOT used in production)
npm test               # Run tests (react-scripts test)

Both servers (from project root)

./start-servers.sh     # Start backend + frontend in background
./stop-servers.sh      # Stop all servers

Database Migrations (run from backend/)

node migrations/run-all.js    # Runs all migrations in order (idempotent)

Python Scripts (from backend/scripts/)

# Compliance xlsx parsing (called automatically by upload flow)
python3 parse_compliance_xlsx.py <file>

# Bulk notes import
python3 import_notes_from_csv.py input.csv --dry-run
python3 import_notes_from_csv.py input.csv

Python dependencies: pandas>=2.0.0, openpyxl>=3.0.0 (install via apt or venv).

Environment Configuration

• backend/.env — PORT, CORS_ORIGINS, SESSION_SECRET, NVD_API_KEY, Ivanti API credentials
• frontend/.env — REACT_APP_API_BASE, REACT_APP_API_HOST
• Both .env files are gitignored; see .env.example files for templates.
• React env vars are baked in at build time — you must rebuild (npm run build) after changing them.

Code Style & Lint Rules

Unused Variables

The frontend ESLint config enforces no-unused-vars as a warning. The CI pipeline fails if warnings exceed 25. To avoid lint failures:

• Prefix intentionally-unused variables with _ — this suppresses the warning. The varsIgnorePattern: "^_" and argsIgnorePattern: "^_" rules are configured in frontend/package.json.
• Common patterns:
  • const [_unused, setFoo] = useState(...) — destructured value you don't need
  • const _legacyRef = useRef(...) — kept for future use
  • function handler(_event) { ... } — required parameter signature but unused
• Do not leave variables unprefixed if unused. Either use them, remove them, or prefix with _.
• This applies to all frontend code written by the agent.

Backend

No ESLint is configured for backend — the pipeline uses node -c syntax checking only. Keep code clean but there is no automated unused-var enforcement on the backend side.

Ports

Environment	URL	Notes
Production	http://71.85.90.6:3001	Express serves API + static frontend build
Staging	http://71.85.90.9:3100	Auto-deploy on master push
Local dev (frontend only)	http://localhost:3000	React dev server with hot-reload, proxies API to :3001

CI/CD Pipeline

Infrastructure

Role	Host	Notes
GitLab instance	steam-gitlab.charterlab.com	Self-hosted GitLab
CI Runner (LXC 108)	71.85.90.8	Docker executor, Runner #6, project-locked
Staging target	71.85.90.9	Auto-deploy on master, port 3100
Production target	71.85.90.6	Manual deploy trigger, port 3001

Executor: Docker

The pipeline uses Docker executor on Runner #6. Jobs run in isolated containers:

• Install / Lint / Test / Build stages: node:18 image
• Deploy stages: alpine:latest image (installs openssh-client and rsync at runtime)

Deploy jobs SSH from inside the Alpine container to the target hosts using a base64-encoded $SSH_PRIVATE_KEY stored as a GitLab CI/CD variable.

CI/CD Variables (project-level)

These are set in GitLab → Settings → CI/CD → Variables:

Variable	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string for backend integration tests
SSH_PRIVATE_KEY	Base64-encoded private key for deploy SSH access
GITLAB_PAT	Project access token for issue comments and release creation

Pipeline file

The pipeline is defined in .gitlab-ci.yml at the project root. Stages: install → lint → test → build → deploy → verify.