Aster

Aster is a technology intelligence and discovery platform that helps developers understand what technologies do and how they connect.

Project status

The application includes Explore, technology profiles, Compare, and Ecosystem experiences. These experiences now read catalogue data from an Express REST API backed by PostgreSQL. Supabase provides the managed PostgreSQL database; this repository does not install or run a local PostgreSQL server.

Stack

• React, TypeScript, and Vite client
• Express and TypeScript REST API
• Supabase hosted PostgreSQL, accessed by the API with pg

Requirements

• Node.js 22 or newer and npm
• A Supabase project with a PostgreSQL connection string

Setup

Install dependencies and create a local environment file:

npm install
cp .env.example .env

In Supabase Dashboard, open Connect and copy a PostgreSQL connection string into DATABASE_URL in .env. Use a connection method appropriate for your deployment (for local development, Supabase's session pooler is suitable when direct IPv6 connectivity is unavailable). Keep .env private and URL-encode any reserved characters in the password. The example enables SSL with sslmode=require.

Apply the schema and load the curated catalogue:

npm run db:migrate
npm run db:seed

The seed command synchronizes Aster's current curated catalogue and is intended for development setup. Do not point it at a production database with data you need to preserve.

Start both the API and Vite client:

npm run dev

The client runs at the Vite URL shown in the terminal and proxies /api to http://127.0.0.1:3001. Alternatively, use npm run dev:api and npm run dev:client separately. Configure API_PORT, API_HOST, CLIENT_ORIGINS, or VITE_API_PROXY_TARGET in .env when needed.

API

The versioned API is served under /api/v1:

Endpoint	Purpose
GET /health	API and database health check
GET /technologies	Search, filter, sort by name, and paginate catalogue entries
GET /technologies/:slug	Retrieve one technology and its use cases/resources
GET /technologies/:slug/relationships	Retrieve its typed incoming and outgoing relationships

List parameters are search, category, type, ecosystem, sort=name, order=asc|desc, page, and limit (maximum 100). Values are validated by the API; database queries use positional parameters.

Verification

npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build

The integration test suite uses DATABASE_URL_TEST, not DATABASE_URL. It creates a temporary schema, runs migrations and seeding there, checks relational constraints, then drops that schema. Set it to a separate Supabase test project/database before running the database integration test. Without it, that test is skipped while API and model tests still run.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.