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"

Secrets hygiene

Treat database URLs and signing keys like production secrets even on a laptop. Use separate databases per developer when possible so test data never overlaps. Before sharing screen recordings or support bundles, scrub .env.local values and rotate anything that might have leaked.

CI pipelines should inject secrets from the provider's secret store, not hard-code them in workflow YAML. Document which variables are required for each service (web, websocket, workers) so new contributors can boot the stack without guessing optional flags.