Developers
Orientation for developers joining the Artisanal Futures platform.
What is Artisanal Futures?
Artisanal Futures is the web platform for artisanalfutures.org — a worker-owned community hub for artisans. It's a marketplace directory (artisan shops, products, and services), a set of forums, cooperative tools, and an admin area for running the platform. Artisans can also request self-serve website provisioning (WordPress/SimplePress instances) for their own shop sites through the platform.
The stack
The app is built on the T3 Stack: Next.js 15 (App Router, React 19) for the frontend, tRPC 11 for a type-safe API layer, Prisma 6 on top of PostgreSQL for the database, better-auth for authentication, Tailwind CSS 4 for styling, and pnpm to install and run everything.
Where to go next
Setup
Prerequisites, cloning the repo, environment variables, and running the app locally.
Architecture
App Router layout, tRPC routers, the Prisma directory schema, and auth/role enforcement.
Database
Local Postgres, migrations, the shared UPCY database, seeding, and production data import.
Deployment
Coolify, branch flow, and how the docs site deploys separately.
Docs maintenance
How this documentation site itself is generated and kept current.
Getting help
Andrew Alvarez (help@generativejustice.org) is the primary contact for setup help, environment variables and credentials, and PR approvals. Ask him if you get stuck on any setup step, and refer to our Shared Credentials for access to team accounts — ask the senior software dev if you need help getting access — before you expect to need real environment values.