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Fork Setup Guide

This guide helps you deploy your own fork of B4M with minimal configuration. Not all secrets are required for basic operation.

Required vs Optional Secrets​

Required Secrets (Deployment Will Fail Without These)​

These secrets are essential for the application to start:

SecretPurposeHow to Generate
MONGODB_URIDatabase connectionYour MongoDB connection string
SESSION_SECRETSession cookie signingopenssl rand -base64 48
JWT_SECRETAuthentication tokensopenssl rand -base64 32
SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEYDatabase secret encryptionopenssl rand -hex 32

Optional Secrets (Features Disabled When Not Configured)​

These secrets enable optional features. The application works without them, but the corresponding features will be disabled:

SecretFeatureGraceful Degradation
GOOGLE_CLIENT_IDGoogle OAuth loginGoogle login button won't appear
GITHUB_CLIENT_IDGitHub OAuth loginGitHub login button won't appear
NPM_TOKENPrivate npm packagesOnly public packages available

Quick Start: Minimal Fork Deployment​

To deploy a minimal fork, you only need to set the 4 required secrets:

# Set required secrets
pnpm sst secret set MONGODB_URI "your-mongodb-connection-string" --stage production
pnpm sst secret set SESSION_SECRET "$(openssl rand -base64 48)" --stage production
pnpm sst secret set JWT_SECRET "$(openssl rand -base64 32)" --stage production
pnpm sst secret set SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" --stage production

The optional secrets have placeholder defaults ('not-configured') that allow deployment to proceed.

Enabling Optional Features​

Google OAuth Login​

  1. Create OAuth credentials in Google Cloud Console
  2. Set the callback URL: https://your-domain.com/api/auth/google/callback
  3. Configure secrets: 
    pnpm sst secret set GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID "your-client-id" --stage production
    pnpm sst secret set GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET "your-client-secret" --stage production

GitHub OAuth Login​

  1. Create OAuth App in GitHub Developer Settings
  2. Set the callback URL: https://your-domain.com/api/auth/github/callback
  3. Configure secrets: 
    pnpm sst secret set GITHUB_CLIENT_ID "your-client-id" --stage production
    pnpm sst secret set GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET "your-client-secret" --stage production

Private NPM Packages​

Only needed if your deployment uses private npm packages:

  1. Generate an npm access token
  2. Configure the secret: 
    pnpm sst secret set NPM_TOKEN "your-npm-token" --stage production

Checking Configuration Status​

Use the System Health Dashboard to verify which features are properly configured:

  1. Navigate to Admin > System Health
  2. Check the OAuth and integrations sections
  3. Features with 'not-configured' placeholders will show as disabled