Talawa Installer

A single interactive script that sets up a complete Talawa development environment from scratch. It handles Nix verification, repository cloning, database provisioning (via Schematic), service startup, dependency installation, and environment configuration so you can go from a bare machine to running servers in one pass.

Goals

• One command to get started. A new contributor should be able to run ./install.sh and end up with a working Talawa stack without reading multiple READMEs or running dozens of manual steps.
• Flexible component selection. Not everyone needs every piece. The installer lets you choose Admin + API, Mobile + API, or all three.
• Self-contained. All Nix files needed for installation (default.nix, flake.nix, flake.lock) are bundled inside this folder. No external Nix configuration is required.
• Respect previous state. If repositories or Schematic files already exist, the installer asks before overwriting them.

Prerequisites

• macOS or Linux
• Git
• Nix — the installer checks for this first and tells you how to install it if it's missing

Usage

cd Talawa-Installer
./install.sh

What the installer does

1. Nix check

Verifies that nix is on your PATH. If not, it prints the install command and exits:

sh <(curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --no-daemon

2. Component selection

Prompts you to choose what to install:

1. Talawa-Admin + Talawa-API — web admin portal and backend
2. Talawa-Mobile + Talawa-API — Flutter mobile app and backend
3. All three

The API is always included because both frontends depend on it.

3. Repository check

For each selected component, the installer looks for the corresponding repository in the parent directory (talawa-api/, talawa-admin/, talawa/). If a repo is missing, it offers to git clone it from the Palisadoes Foundation GitHub.

4. Schematic + database setup (API/Admin path)

Schematic is a Nix-based PostgreSQL manager used to provision the database.

• If schematic-master/ already exists, the installer asks whether to keep it or re-clone.
• It looks for an existing server definition under schematic-master/srv/. If one is found, it runs scm upgrade and scm start via nix develop to bring the database up.
• If no server exists, it creates a new one and starts it.

5. Services and environment (API/Admin path)

The installer enters the root default.nix via nix-shell, which:

• Starts PostgreSQL (or detects the Schematic-managed instance already running)
• Starts Redis and MinIO as background daemons
• Writes .env files for talawa-api/ and talawa-admin/ if they don't already exist
• Runs pnpm install in both packages
• Applies Drizzle database migrations for the API

6. Mobile setup

If Talawa-Mobile was selected, the installer asks whether you want to develop with:

1. An Android emulator — downloads the full SDK with system images (~10 GB) via nix develop
2. A physical device — uses nix develop .#physical for a leaner SDK (~6 GB)

Either path sets up Flutter, the Android SDK, and Java, then runs flutter pub get in the mobile repo.

7. Auto-starting the development servers

Once dependencies are installed, the installer drops you directly into an interactive nix-shell with the dev servers already running in the background:

• Talawa-API is started with pnpm run start_development_server — output streamed to .local/api.log
• Talawa-Admin is started with pnpm run serve — output streamed to .local/admin.log

You stay in the shell so you can tail the logs, run pnpm commands, or interact with the database directly. The installer's shell summary shows the URLs:

API:    http://127.0.0.1:4000    (log: .local/api.log)
Admin:  http://localhost:4321     (log: .local/admin.log)

To watch the servers as they come up:

tail -f .local/api.log
tail -f .local/admin.log

Mobile in a separate terminal

The mobile environment uses a different Nix flake (for Flutter + Android SDK), so it can't share the same shell. If you selected mobile, open a second terminal and run:

cd Talawa-Installer
nix develop                  # or: nix develop .#physical
cd talawa && flutter run

Re-entering later

The autostart only fires once (on the initial install). On subsequent runs, just enter nix-shell from the installer directory — PostgreSQL, Redis, and MinIO will come back up, but the API and Admin dev servers are left to you:

cd Talawa-Installer
nix-shell
# then in separate terminals:
cd talawa-api && pnpm run start_development_server
cd talawa-admin && pnpm run serve

Default credentials

After installation, the API is pre-configured with:

Field	Value
Email	administrator@example.com
Password	password

Project layout

Talawa-Installer/            # Everything needed to install Talawa
  install.sh                 # Interactive installer script
  default.nix                # Nix shell — starts PG, Redis, MinIO
  flake.nix                  # Flutter + Android SDK environments
  flake.lock                 # Pinned flake dependencies
  README.md                  # This file

  # Cloned into this directory during installation:
  talawa-api/                # GraphQL API backend
  talawa-admin/              # React web admin portal
  talawa/                    # Flutter mobile app
  schematic-master/          # Schematic PostgreSQL manager