Local setup

Prerequisites

Node.js 24 or later
pnpm (the project uses pnpm 10.x — see packageManager in package.json)
Docker and Docker Compose (for the recommended Docker approach)

Using Docker is the preferred approach because it starts all services together — frontend, backend, database, and cache — without requiring you to configure each one individually.

Running the frontend

Docker (recommended)
Direct pnpm

Run all services from the repository root:

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/OWASP/Nest.git
cd Nest

Copy the environment file

cp frontend/.env.example frontend/.env

Edit frontend/.env and set at minimum NEXT_SERVER_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID and NEXT_SERVER_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET if you need GitHub authentication. See Environment variables for details on every variable.

Start all services

docker compose -f docker-compose/local/compose.yaml up

This starts the frontend (Next.js on port 3000), backend (Django), PostgreSQL, and Redis.

Open the app

Navigate to http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Run only the frontend development server without Docker. You still need the backend running for API calls and GraphQL.

Install dependencies

From the frontend/ directory:

pnpm install

Copy the environment file

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env to point NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_GRAPHQL_URL, and other API variables at your running backend. See Environment variables.

Start the dev server

pnpm run dev

The server starts on http://localhost:3000 with Turbopack enabled.

Key pnpm scripts

All scripts are defined in frontend/package.json and run from the frontend/ directory.

Task	Command
Start dev server	`pnpm run dev`
Build for production	`pnpm run build`
Lint (with auto-fix)	`pnpm run lint`
Format code	`pnpm run format`
Run unit tests	`pnpm run test:unit`
Run a11y tests	`pnpm run test:a11y`
Run e2e tests	`pnpm run test:e2e`
Generate GraphQL types	`pnpm run graphql-codegen`

The graphql-codegen script requires the backend to be running. See GraphQL code generation for details.

Node.js version

The engines field in package.json requires Node.js ^24.0.0. Use a version manager like nvm or fnm to switch versions easily:

nvm install 24
nvm use 24

Getting Started

Architecture

Prerequisites

Running the frontend

Key pnpm scripts

Node.js version

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Getting Started

Architecture

​Prerequisites

​Running the frontend

​Key pnpm scripts

​Node.js version

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Prerequisites

Running the frontend

Key pnpm scripts

Node.js version