Find business regulations

Introduction

Find business regulations will provide a searchable and filterable list of UK regulations and legislation.

Getting Started

The quickest way top get started is to use the docker-compose configuration to run the application and required PostgreSQL in a containerised environment. Most of the actions required to run and manage the application are encapsulated in the Makefile. First, in a working directory run:

$ git clone [email protected]:uktrade/find-business-regulations.git
$ cd find-business-regulations

The docker compose configuration requires that a local.env file is present. An example file is provided in the repository. Create one like this:

$ cp local.env.example local.env

This should work out of the box.

Create the initial database:

$ make database

The make database command will create a PostgreSQL database. If you have an existing database and want to start from scratch, use make drop-database to delete an existing database first.

Prepare the application for first use:

$ make first-use

Start the services:

$ make start

You may see Sass deprecation warnings, but these can be ignored.

Navigate a browser to:

http://localhost:8081

Local development environment

While the docker-compose configuration is the quickest way to get started, it can also be useful to create a development environment on your local machine. However, your mileage may vary depending on your operating system. The following instructions are for OSX.

Prerequisites

As we are using python package psycopg-c, you need the PostgreSQL client development headers (e.g. the libpq-dev package) installed on your system. On Mac you can run the following command to install libpq:

$ brew install libpq

Note the dev files are included using this command.

Requirements

• Python 3.12.*. Don't be tempted to use an earlier or later version of Python. Use Poetry to manage your Python version and dependencies.
• PostgreSQL. Optionally you can install and configure PostgreSQL on your local machine. However, be advised it's much easier to use the db service provisioned by the docker-compose configuration which is exposed on localhost:5432. Additionally, client applications like psql and pg_dump are installed using the libpq installation prerequisite step above.
• Docker Desktop. A recent version (e.g. 4.30.0 or above) is recommended, which includes all the key components you'll require including engine, build and compose.

Install Poetry

We use Poetry to manage dependencies. Follow the guidance in the official documentation. On OSX, run the following commands to install Poetry:

$ brew install pipx
$ pipx ensurepath
$ pipx install poetry

Restart your terminal.

Create a Poetry env and activate it

$ poetry install
$ poetry shell

Installing pre-commit hooks

With your Poetry shell active:

$ pre-commit install

This will ensure that your code passes quality checks before you commit it. Code quality checks are also performed when pushing your code to origin but pre-commit hooks catch issues early and will improve Developer Experience.

Setup the service, database and cache locally

$ make setup_local

Update database tables (manually)...do not use unless you know what you are doing

To update local database tables, you need to set the DATABASE_URL environment variable. You can set it in the terminal or in the .env file.

<!-- pragma: allowlist secret --> $ export DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/fbr

If you want to migrate all apps then navigate /find-business-regulations/fbr and use the following command:

$ poetry run python manage.py migrate

If you want to migrate a single app then navigate /find-business-regulations/fbr and use the following command:

$ poetry run python manage.py migrate <app_name>