Local Dev Setup

This guide walks you through setting up the Sema Link frontend app on your local machine.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+ — installed via Homebrew (brew install node@22)
• Git — with SSH access to the Sema-Link GitHub org
• npm — comes with Node

Node.js PATH Issue

If npm is not found after installing Node via Homebrew, add this to your ~/.zshrc:

export PATH="/usr/local/opt/node@22/bin:$PATH"

Then run source ~/.zshrc.

1. Clone the Repo

git clone git@github.com:Sema-Link/semalink-frontend.git
cd semalink-frontend

2. Install Dependencies

npm install

3. Create Your Environment File

cp .env.example .env.local

Open .env.local and fill in the values. For local development against mock data, you can leave the VITE_CF_ACCESS_* values as placeholders.

VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://staging-arc.semalink.africa
VITE_CF_ACCESS_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id-here
VITE_CF_ACCESS_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret-here
VITE_ENV=staging

See Environment Variables for a full description of each variable.

4. Start the Dev Server

npm run dev

The app will be available at http://localhost:5173 (or the next available port if 5173 is in use).

Available Scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start local dev server with hot reload
npm run build	Type-check and build for production
npm run preview	Preview the production build locally
npm run test:unit	Run unit tests with Vitest
npm run lint	Lint and auto-fix with ESLint + oxlint
npm run format	Format source files with Prettier