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Development

Development workflow​

The default development path is script-driven and Docker-based:

  1. copy docker\dev\.env.example to docker\dev\.env
  2. run .\scripts\start-dev.ps1
  3. make code or docs changes
  4. run the relevant build or test command
  5. stop the environment with the repository stop script

Dev-only auth helper​

For faster local testing, the backend now exposes a dev-profile-only helper endpoint:

POST /api/v1/auth/dev-login

Send a username in the request body and the backend returns a normal auth response with access and refresh tokens.

Example:

{
  "username": "admin"
}

For quick browser testing, you can also open:

/api/v1/auth/dev-login?username=admin

The admin login page also exposes dev-only helper buttons so you can sign in as the default admin or reset that admin account without using the browser console.

The backend reset endpoint is:

POST /api/v1/auth/dev-reset-admin

This is intentionally limited to the dev profile so password storage and the normal login flow stay unchanged.

Frontend stack​

  • Vue 3
  • TypeScript
  • Vite
  • Vue Router
  • Pinia
  • Axios

Backend stack​

  • Java 25
  • Spring Boot 4.0.5
  • Spring Security
  • Spring Data JPA
  • MariaDB
  • Redis
  • Flyway

Main code areas​

The current codebase is split into three main working areas:

  • backend\ for Spring Boot APIs, security, entities, services, and persistence
  • frontend\ for the Vue admin and voter application
  • website\ for Docusaurus documentation

Key implementation areas​

Frontend​

  • frontend/src/components/common/wizard/
  • frontend/src/composables/useWizard.ts
  • frontend/src/views/admin/AdminElectionFormView.vue
  • frontend/src/views/admin/AdminUsersView.vue
  • frontend/src/views/voter/VoterElectionView.vue
  • frontend/src/views/voter/VoteConfirmView.vue

Backend​

  • backend/src/main/java/at/ftmahringer/wahlsystem/controller/
  • backend/src/main/java/at/ftmahringer/wahlsystem/service/ElectionService.java
  • backend/src/main/java/at/ftmahringer/wahlsystem/service/VotingService.java
  • backend/src/main/java/at/ftmahringer/wahlsystem/service/UserManagementService.java

Validation commands​

Frontend​

Set-Location .\frontend
npm run build

Backend​

Set-Location .\backend
java -classpath .mvn\wrapper\maven-wrapper.jar "-Dmaven.multiModuleProjectDirectory=F:\projects\Wahl\backend" org.apache.maven.wrapper.MavenWrapperMain test

Docs​

Set-Location .\website
npm run build

Notes​

  • The Maven wrapper batch file can fail when JAVA_HOME is missing, even if Java is installed globally.
  • The Docker backend startup was hardened to call the wrapper JAR directly inside the container instead of relying on shell execution of mvnw.
  • The backend test setup uses H2 for the test profile.
  • types-and-ideas.txt is still kept as a backlog/reference document because it contains future election types that are not implemented yet.