Hack Club: The Game (YSWS)

This is the Rails app behind Hack Club: The Game - the YSWS (You Ship, We Ship) platform for HC:TG. For the mobile website used at our flagship in-person event, check out hackclub/theplatform!

Getting Started

Setting up the platform is roughly the same as setting up any other Rails app.

Note

On Windows, we recommend using a GitHub Codespace or WSL2.

Prerequisites

• Ruby 3.4.7: we recommend rbenv or mise
• Node.js 22+: install via nvm, fnm, or mise
• PostgreSQL 16: easiest via Docker

Redis is not required for local development, but strongly recommended for production.

1. Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/hackclub/the-game.git
cd the-game
cp .env.example .env

Fill in .env with your credentials. At minimum, you'll need:

Variable	Where to get it
DATABASE_URL	Pre-filled if you use the Docker command below
SECRET_KEY_BASE	Run bin/rails secret
ACCOUNT_CLIENT_ID / SECRET	Create an app on auth.hackclub.com
HACKATIME_CLIENT_ID / SECRET	Create an app on hackatime.hackclub.com
ACTIVE_RECORD_ENCRYPTION_*	Run bin/rails db:encryption:init

Most other variables are optional for local development.

2. Start PostgreSQL

Run Postgres in a Docker container — this matches the default DATABASE_URL in .env.example:

docker run -d \
  --name game-postgres \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=postgres \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  postgres:16

If you already have Postgres running locally, just update DATABASE_URL in your .env accordingly.

3. Install dependencies and set up the database

Rails gives us a convenient command to install all dependencies and set up everything we need!

bin/setup

4. Start the dev server

bin/dev

Visit http://localhost:3000 once both Vite and Rails are running.