# Using Alexandria Locally

# Introduction

Now that you have everything installed and working, in this page we'll cover how to interact with Alexandria from the command line and all the common commands that you might need.

# Prerequisites

Environment Setup

../environment_setup/

Getting It Running

../getting_it_running/

# Interacting with Alexandria

Start by bringing up the database; you will always need to have PosgreSQL running before running Alexandria.

make db_up

Once that completes, we're ready to start Alexandria.

make run

This will start the local server running at http://localhost:8000/. If you load that page now, you should see logs start to fill your terminal screen. If you change any code, the server will automatically reload in your terminal. Wait a moment, refresh the page in your web browsers, and you'll be running the new version of the code!

Did you get a long error that has django.db.utils.OperationalError: at the end? Make sure the database is running from the previous step: make db_up!

The default admin login is:

username: 1234
password: asdf

Stop Alexandria in your terminal by pressing CTRL+C.

If you're done working and need to bring down the database, you can do so with:

make db_down

# Resetting the Database

Danger!

➡️ THIS WILL DELETE ALL YOUR DATA IN POSTGRES. ⬅️

Do not do this unless you actually want to reset your database!

To reset your data, run the following command:

make clean

This removes all the data in Postgres and leaves it empty. If you're doing development work, you will need to repopulate the database with the development data again by running:

make dev_data

# Testing Alexandria

Tests make sure that we don't break existing functionality while working on new features and make sure that new features work the way they're supposed to! If you just want to run the tests directly, make sure that the Python environment is activated (poetry shell) and run the following:

pytest

You can run a specific file of tests (or a group of tests) by specifying the folder for pytest to check:

pytest alexandria/api

If you want to run all the tests the fast way, run:

make test

# Launching the Docs Server

If you want to work on the documentation (these pages!) then you will need to install Retype -- more information at the below link.

Contributing Documentation

../../contributing_docs/

After Retype is installed, run the Retype server by running the following:

make docs

# Interacting with Alexandria on the Command Line

Sometimes you need to access Alexandria or the database directly; you can do so with the below commands.

Access Alexandria's command line:

make shell

Open the database (psql) command line:

make psql_shell

Congratulations! You now have all the commands and resources you need to work on Alexandria locally.

dev development postgres psql