Level

Project Status

Level began with the ambitious idea of solving the problems caused by real-time communication tools. After pouring thousands of hours effort into the cause, I made the tough decision to move on from the project.

Read the full story here →

This codebase is a full-scale Elixir/Phoenix SaaS application with a single-page app Elm front-end. I hope it will live on as a helpful resource for the community.

— Derrick Reimer, Founder

Developer Setup

You'll need to install the following dependencies first:

• Elixir (version)
• PostgreSQL 10
• Yarn (latest)
• Node (version)

Run the bootstrap script to install the remaining dependencies and create your development database:

cd level
script/bootstrap

If your local PostgreSQL install does not have a default postgres user, open the config/dev.secret.exs file and update the credentials. Then, run the bootstrap script again.

Use the script/server command to start up your local server and visit localhost:4000 from your browser.

Installing Node.js

This repository includes a .nvmrc file targeting a specific version of Node that is known to be compatible with all current node dependencies. Things might work with a newer version of Node, but the most guaranteed route is to install Node Version Manager and run nvm install from the project root.

Then, be sure to run script/bootstrap to install node dependencies with the correct version of node.

Running tests and analyses

We have a handful of helper scripts available:

• script/elixir-test: runs the Elixir test suite with coveralls
• script/elm-test: runs the Elm test suite
• script/test: runs the Elixir and Elm test suites
• script/static-analysis: runs Credo (Elixir linting), Dialyzer, and Elixir formatter verification
• script/build: runs all the test suites and static analysis

Dependencies

The following environment variables must be set in production:

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Variable</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> <thead> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>AWS</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID</code></td> <td>The AWS access key id for your account (with access to S3).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY</code></td> <td>The AWS secret access key corresponding to the access key id.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_ASSET_STORE_BUCKET</code></td> <td>The name of the S3 bucket in which to store uploaded assets.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Host</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>PORT</code></td> <td>The port on which to host the application (typically 80).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_HOST</code></td> <td>The domain on which you are serving the app (used for generating URLs).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_CDN_HOST</code></td> <td>The host for the CDN for serving static assets (like Level's CSS and application JS).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_MAILER_HOST</code></td> <td>The domain via which to send transaction emails (usually same as <code>LEVEL_HOST</code>).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_SECRET_KEY_BASE</code></td> <td>A secret key for verifying the integrity of signed cookies.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Database</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_DATABASE_URL</code></td> <td>The URL for the PostgreSQL database.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_POOL_SIZE</code></td> <td>The maximum number of database connections each process may consume.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Transactional Email</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POSTMARK_API_KEY</code></td> <td>The API key for <a href="https://postmarkapp.com/">Postmark</a>.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Web Push Notifications</strong><br>See instructions here: https://github.com/web-push-libs/web-push#command-line</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_WEB_PUSH_PUBLIC_KEY</code></td> <td>A VAPID public key.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>LEVEL_WEB_PUSH_PRIVATE_KEY</code></td> <td>A VAPID private key.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

The following variables are for non-essential external services.

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Variable</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> <thead> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Exception Monitoring</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>HONEYBADGER_API_KEY</code></td> <td>The API key for Honeybadger.io exception monitoring (Elixir).</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>HONEYBADGER_JS_API_KEY</code></td> <td>The API key for Honeybadger.io exception monitoring (JavaScript).</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Analytics</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>FATHOM_SITE_ID</code></td> <td>The site ID for Fathom Analytics.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>FULLSTORY_ORG</code></td> <td>The organization ID for FullStory.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>HEAP_ANALYTICS_APP_ID</code></td> <td>The app ID for Heap Analytics.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Email Marketing</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>DRIP_ACCOUNT_ID</code></td> <td>The account ID for Drip.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>DRIP_API_KEY</code></td> <td>The personal api key for Drip.</td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><strong>Support</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>HELPSCOUT_BEACON_ID</code></td> <td>The Beacon ID for Help Scout.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

Documentation

Run the script/docs to generate and view the project ExDocs locally.

Heroku Deployment (Experimental)

One of our goals is to make self-installation as painless as possible for those who are interested in hosting their own instance.

The relevant configuration files for Heroku live here:

• app.json
• elixir_buildpack.config
• phoenix_static_buildpack.config
• Procfile

We are aiming to keep seamless Heroku deployment up-to-date, with a few important "alpha software" notes:

• It's possible you may find it broken on master. If you do, please file an issue.
• As deployment needs grow more complex, it may become no longer feasible to support Heroku deploys. Caveat emptor.

Required additional services

In addition to a Heroku account, you'll need the following services to get your Heroku install up and running:

• An AWS account and an S3 bucket for storing file uploads. You'll be asked for AWS API keys and bucket name environment variables during setup.
• A transactional email provider (we recommend Postmark). You'll be asked for SMTP host, port, username, and password environment variables during setup.

Copyright

© 2019 Level Technologies, LLC

Level is source-available software. (license | readme)