Environment Setup

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed:

Node.js (v18+)

Required for running the Next.js frontend and WebSocket service.

node --version

npm or yarn

Package manager for installing dependencies.

npm --version

Docker Desktop

Required for running TimescaleDB database.

docker --version

Git

For version control and cloning the repository.

git --version

Environment Variables

Polyblock requires several environment variables to function properly:

DATABASE_URL

Connection string for TimescaleDB.

postgresql://Polyblock:YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE@localhost:5432/Polyblock

NEXT_PUBLIC_WEBSOCKET_SERVER_URL

WebSocket server URL for real-time data.

ws://localhost:8081

WEBSOCKET_SERVER_HTTP_URL

HTTP URL for the WebSocket service.

http://localhost:8081

PLATFORM_FEE_WALLET_ADDRESS

Platform fee wallet address for collecting trading fees.

0xc612E8925bE07E8F836C26F37E74780D4d012241

Creating .env.local

Create a .env.local file in the project root:

cat > .env.local << 'EOF'
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://Polyblock:YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE@localhost:5432/Polyblock
NEXT_PUBLIC_WEBSOCKET_SERVER_URL=ws://localhost:8081
WEBSOCKET_SERVER_HTTP_URL=http://localhost:8081
PLATFORM_FEE_WALLET_ADDRESS=0xc612E8925bE07E8F836C26F37E74780D4d012241
EOF

Verification

Verify your environment is configured correctly:

# Check environment file exists
ls -la .env.local

# View contents (be careful with sensitive data)
cat .env.local | grep -E "DATABASE_URL|WEBSOCKET"