Policy Connector is a web application for researching government policy information, including regulations and related guidance.
This is an independent non-government adaptation of an open source codebase, eRegulations, that has had many contributors:
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau developed the first version of eRegulations in 2013 and released it as an open source project. See its current iteration at CFPB Interactive Bureau Regulations.
- At the General Services Administration, 18F helped a few agencies adapt eRegulations for their needs, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives: ATF eRegulations (archived repository).
- The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services reused eRegulations and developed additional features. This version is based on the CMS codebase.
You need these to get started:
- git
- Docker, including Docker Compose (for local development, install Docker Desktop)
- Python 3.12 (consider using Homebrew)
- Node >= v20, which includes npm (we suggest using nvm)
- go version 1.16
- Prevent security incidents: To stop yourself from accidentally pushing secrets to GitHub, you must set up pre-commit hooks in your local environment: SECRETSCANNING.md.
git clone https://github.com/A1MSolutions/policyconnector
Or if using SSH keys:
git clone [email protected]:A1MSolutions/policyconnector.git
cd solution
cp Dockerfile.template Dockerfile
The Dockerfile has several environment variables. For local development, you can leave them blank to use default values.
To start a local Docker environment and load a few parts of 42 CFR and 45 CFR:
cd solution
make local
Create static assets to give the site the proper CSS files, including the admin panel:
cd solution
make local.collectstatic
Proceed to http://localhost:8000 in your browser to see the results.
You can run make
to learn about other available tasks. Recommended:
make watch-all
will automatically compile your local changes to SCSS and JS so that you can see them in your browser.
make local.seed
will load data from the fixtures folder setting up a usable amount of data for local use.
This data is not maintained and should not be relied on for any purpose other than development.
make local.createadmin
will create an admin superuser for the admin portion of the site. Proceed to http://localhost:8000/admin to access the admin portion and login with the credentials you created in the previous step.
make local.seed
will load data from the fixtures folder setting up a usable amount of data for local use. This data is not maintained and should not be relied on for any purpose other than development.
make local.stop
will cause the running Docker processes to stop without losing data.
make local.clean
will remove the local environment completely, useful when you want to start fresh.
To change the styling of the admin site, add custom style rules to solution/ui/regulations/css/admin/custom_admin.css
.
To see the changes on the admin site, run make local.collectstatic
. This will update/create the CSS files in the solution/static-assets/css/admin
directory.
You will need to restart the local environment to see the changes. The Makefile will automatically move those files to the correct location where STATIC_ROOT
is defined. This is the location where Django will look for static files.
Before running the tests for the first time, you may need to install Cypress dependencies.
- Navigate to project root
cd solutions/ui/e2e
npm install
- Navigate to project root
- If project is not already running locally, run
make local
- For Cypress run
make test.cypress
. This will run our Cypress suite. - For Python unit tests, run
make test.pytest
. This will run our Python unittest using pytest. - For Vitest run
make test.vitest
. This will run our Vitest suite.
This project uses ESLint to enforce consistent coding styles across the frontend (JavaScript) and infrastructure (TypeScript) components, improving code readability and reducing the likelihood of runtime errors. We use a shared ESLint configuration (eslint-global-rules.mjs
file) at the project root to define a baseline of rules applicable to both the frontend and infrastructure code. Each application (frontend and CDK) also maintains its own ESLint configuration file, to allow tailoring rules and plugins to JavaScript and TypeScript.
To run ESLint, execute the following commands from the project root:
make eslint-frontend
make eslint-cdk
For more information and resources to help integrate ESLint into your text editor, see LINTING.md.
To update local data with the most recent version of production, you need access to the production database and pg_dump. You can also use these instructions to update dev or val data with fresh data from production.
-
You must have the correct version of PostgreSQL installed locally on your machine (see prerequisites for version number). Local PostgreSQL server must be turned off.
-
Ensure you have AWS CLI installed locally on your machine.
-
Connect to the VPN.
-
Create a backup of the database you intend to restore using pg_dump. Execute the following command:
pg_dump -U <DB_USER> -h <DB_HOST> -p <DB_PORT> <DB_NAME> > <name_you_want_your_backupfile_to_be>
- It is recommended that you put these backups in a folder that is hidden from
git
. We suggest creating a folder in the root of the project nameddb_backup
and dumping all of your backups into it. This directory name is safe to use, as it has already been added to the project's.gitignore
.
Note
restore_db.sh also performs a backup of the database you intend to restore. However, as a precautionary measure, it's advisable to create a separate backup of your database.)
-
Sign in to the Cloudtamer CMS portal (cloudtamer.cms.gov) to retrieve your short-term access keys.
-
Paste the access keys into your terminal. This will enable you to use AWS CLI commands.
-
Run the script by executing ./solution/backend/scripts/backup_db.sh from your terminal.
-
Once the backup process is finished, you'll find a copy of the backup file in the directory where the command was executed.
- The file will be named in the following format:
<db host name>_<name of your db>_<date>.sql
.
- The file will be named in the following format:
-
With the backup file ready, proceed to restore the database by running the script
./solution/backend/scripts/restore_db.sh
.- local database name:
localhost
- local port:
5432
- local database name:
-
Upon running the restoration script, you'll receive a prompt indicating that the existing database will be replaced. If you're certain, type yes.
-
Follow the subsequent prompts, providing the necessary credentials. When prompted for the backup file, enter the name of the file generated during the backup process.
-
Before the database is restored, a backup is created of the db that is being restored. The file will be named in the following format:
<db host name>_<name of your db>_<date>.sql
.
- Visit the local website and ensure that the data has been copied.
If adding a new model, update the following files:
- In populate_content.py add it to both the add it to the fixtures list. First part of it is the JSON file, the other is the model.
- In the make file, either add it to the list of objects, or add a new line for the model.
- In the emptyseedtables.py add the model to the handler command.
To change the styling of the admin site, add custom style rules to solution/ui/regulations/css/admin/custom_admin.css
.
To see the changes on the admin site, run make local.collectstatic
. This will update/create the CSS files in the solution/static-assets/css/admin
directory.
You will need to restart the local environment to see the changes. The Makefile will automatically move those files to the correct location where STATIC_ROOT
is defined. This is the location where Django will look for static files.
For admin site customizations, use the icon set at Boxicons.
This project is a fork of the CMCS eRegulations repository. Sometimes you may want to incorporate specific commits from the upstream repository into your local branch to create a PR for this fork.
To get a specific commit from the upstream repository into a branch in your fork, follow these steps:
-
Add the upstream repository as a remote (if you haven't already):
git remote add upstream [email protected]:Enterprise-CMCS/cmcs-eregulations.git
-
Fetch the latest changes from upstream:
git fetch upstream
-
View recent commits on the upstream main branch:
git log upstream/main -n 10 --oneline
-
Create a new branch for your PR:
git checkout -b your-feature-branch
-
Cherry-pick the specific commit you want:
git cherry-pick COMMIT_HASH
Replace
COMMIT_HASH
with the hash of the commit you want to include.If there are merge conflicts, resolve them and then continue with:
git cherry-pick --continue
-
Push the branch to your fork:
git push origin your-feature-branch
-
Create a PR from your branch to the main branch of this repository.