Prerequisites#

Use a Go toolchain compatible with go.mod and Node compatible with ui/package.json. The documented development baseline is Go 1.26.6 and Node ^20.19.0 or >=22.12.0; check the requirements for the version you are building. Use pnpm for the frontend and a non-production Kubernetes context for development.

The marketing and documentation sites are separate static artifacts. Building this docs site does not compile or change the Orkiva application.

Install and start#

make deps
make dev

make deps installs UI dependencies and downloads Go modules. make dev starts the development workflow. Use the URLs reported by the running processes and configure the backend secrets/database for your local environment. Do not point a first development session at customer infrastructure.

Build the deployable application#

make frontend
make backend
# Or build both:
make build

The frontend build generates static/, which is embedded by the backend. Edit ui/src rather than generated static files. Build metadata is supplied through the Makefile’s linker flags. A binary built without the matching frontend can serve stale UI assets.

Validate a change#

pnpm --dir ui run type-check
pnpm --dir ui run lint
pnpm --dir ui run test
go test ./...
make pre-commit

Choose checks appropriate to the files changed. The repository requires make pre-commit before a commit. End-to-end tests use the e2e project and a local kind environment; inspect the Makefile’s E2E targets before launching them.