brag.mp4

BaatCheet

Themed discussion rooms, live at baatcheet.app. A Django backend, a Vite + React frontend, and the whole thing on one small EC2 instance.

• Rooms under themes: start one, edit or delete what you host, search by theme, name or description
• Replies: chat-style threads; replying makes you a participant
• Profiles: picture, name, bio, rooms hosted, latest replies
• Accounts: sign up with email verification, sign in by username or email, password reset, optional Google
• A landing page that introduces BaatCheet to visitors, and branded emails
• Discord-style app with a CRED-style finish: a theme rail, # room channels, chat threads, a quick switcher (/ or ⌘K), NeoPOP buttons; dark by default, day mode one click away; works on phones
• A public read API: GET /api/rooms/ and /api/rooms/<id>/

Quick start

Needs uv and Node.js 22+.

git clone https://github.com/engagepy/django-discord-skeleton.git baatcheet && cd baatcheet
uv sync
(cd frontend && npm install && npm run build)
uv run python manage.py migrate
uv run python manage.py createsuperuser
uv run python manage.py runserver

Open http://localhost:8000 and sign up. The verification link prints in the terminal running the server.

Working on the frontend? Keep runserver going and also run cd frontend && npm run dev, then use http://localhost:5173 for instant reloads.

No keys are needed locally. Every setting is listed, with what happens without it, in .sample-env and in the table in AGENTS.md.

How it fits together

Browser ──HTTPS──▶ nginx ──▶ gunicorn ──▶ Django ──▶ PostgreSQL (same instance)
                     │                      ├─ /            React app (frontend/dist/index.html)
                     │                      ├─ /api/app/    JSON API the app uses (sign-in required)
                     │                      ├─ /api/        original public read API
                     │                      ├─ /accounts/   sign-in pages (django-allauth)
                     │                      └─ /media/      profile pictures from disk
                     └─ /static/  built JS/CSS, cached for a year

Every address from the original app still works (/room/3/, /profile/5, /createroom/, …), so old links and bookmarks land in the right place.

Deploy

Uses django-aws-deploy: one instance, about $20/month, where the old setup used RDS and S3.

git clone https://github.com/engagepy/django-aws-deploy.git && cd django-aws-deploy
cp deploy.conf.example deploy.conf

Set these in deploy.conf:

PROJECT=baatcheet
DOMAIN=baatcheet.app
REPO=git@github.com:engagepy/django-discord-skeleton.git
WSGI_MODULE=baatcheet.wsgi
FRONTEND_DIR=frontend          # the server builds the React app on every deploy
APP_REPO_PATH=../baatcheet     # your local checkout, for the preflight checks
AWS_PROFILE=indiapolls         # it shares the indiapolls instance…
HOST_ON=indiapolls             # …so no new instance, just its own user, database, service and site
CERT_EMAIL=info@astratechz.com

Then ./launch.sh --check-only, and ./launch.sh. After that, every deploy is:

ssh baatcheet "sudo baatcheet-deploy"

Bringing over data from the old RDS/S3 setup (optional)

The models and migrations are the same as before, so the old database restores as-is and upgrades itself on the next deploy.

1. Dump the old database from anywhere that can reach RDS: pg_dump --format=custom --no-owner --no-acl -h <rds-endpoint> -U BaatCheet mydb > old.dump
2. Copy it up and restore it into a fresh, empty database (the new one only holds the admin user so far):

   scp old.dump baatcheet:/tmp/
   ssh baatcheet "sudo systemctl stop gunicorn && sudo -u postgres dropdb baatcheet \
     && sudo -u postgres createdb --owner baatcheet baatcheet \
     && sudo -u baatcheet pg_restore --no-owner --no-acl -d baatcheet /tmp/old.dump"

3. Copy profile pictures from the bucket: aws s3 sync s3://<bucket>/uploads/ ./uploads/, then rsync -a uploads/ baatcheet:/tmp/uploads/ && ssh baatcheet "sudo -u baatcheet mkdir -p /srv/baatcheet/media && sudo cp -r /tmp/uploads /srv/baatcheet/media/ && sudo chown -R baatcheet: /srv/baatcheet/media"
4. ssh baatcheet "sudo baatcheet-deploy" to run the new migrations.

When the site is confirmed working, stop the RDS instance and empty the bucket so they stop billing.

Development

uv run pytest                                   # backend tests
uv run ruff check . && uv run ruff format .     # lint + format
cd frontend && npx oxlint && npm run build      # frontend lint + build

CI runs all of this on every pull request. Agents and contributors: start with AGENTS.md.