genconplanner

Firebase Setup

Create an account on Firebase:

1. Click "Get Started"
2. Click "Add Project", and set a name. Click "Continue"
3. Decline Google Analytics, and click "Continue"
4. Click "Authentication", then "Get Started"
5. Click "Google" under Additional Providers; click the toggle to enable, then select an email address, and click "Save"
6. Click the gear icon next to Project Overview, and select "Project Settings"
7. Click the "Service Accounts" tab, then click "Create Service Account"
8. Select "Go" then click "Generate new private key"
9. Save the resulting JSON file
10. Click the "General" tab, then click the </> icon to set up a new web app integration
11. Choose a name, then click "Register App". Copy the const firebaseConfig that it generates for you

BoardGameGeek (BGG) Setup

As of late 2025, BoardGameGeek requires an API key for all XML API requests. For more details, see the official BGG XML API2 Documentation.

1. Create a BoardGameGeek account.
2. Register your application at boardgamegeek.com/applications to obtain an API key.
3. Once obtained, set the BGG_API_KEY environment variable.

Environment Variables

export FIREBASE_CONFIG=... # the contents of the JSON file from step 9, as a single line

# these values come from the const firebaseConfig object you generated in step 11
export FIREBASE_API_KEY=...
export FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN=...
export FIREBASE_DATABASE_URL=...
export FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID=...
export FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET=...
export FIREBASE_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID=...

export BGG_API_KEY=... # your BoardGameGeek API key

Use direnv to make this convenient so that you don't have to re-export these values into your environment each time you work on Gencon Planner

Dev Env Setup

• Install Docker Desktop
• Start the database in the background: $ docker compose up -d db
• Start the web server in the forgreound $ docker build --target web . $ docker compose up web

The web container depends upon the update container, which will download & parse the events spreadsheet from gencon.com in the background.

To reset all state, use docker compose down -v to clear the DB data volume, then follow the above steps again

Bootstrap local db from genconplanner.com

Instructions adapted from https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgres-import-export

• heroku pg:backups:capture --app genconplanner
• heroku pg:backups:download --app genconplanner
• docker exec -i genconplanner-db-1 pg_restore --verbose --clean --no-acl --no-owner -U postgres -d genconplanner < latest.dump

Alternate Dev Env

This setup uses a local postgres database and the heroku command. It may be more like the true run-time environment than the Docker version above.

• Install Heroku
• Install Postgres following instructions here: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgresql#set-up-postgres-on-mac

To run server locally with Heroku, use ./build.sh && heroku local web

To update the event listing locally, use ./build.sh && heroku local update