Equalify Technical Documentation

This folder contains technical documentation for developers working on or deploying Equalify.

Documentation Index

Document	Description
Architecture Overview	High-level system architecture and component overview
Backend API	API endpoints, authentication, and database access
Scanning Services	HTML and PDF scanning microservices
Frontend Guide	React application structure and development
Database Schema	PostgreSQL tables and relationships
Deployment Guide	AWS deployment and configuration
Contributing	Development workflow and contribution guidelines

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22.x
• npm
• AWS CLI v2 (for deployment)

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/equalifyEverything/equalify.git
cd equalify

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start frontend development
cd apps/frontend
npm run start:staging

Deploy to Staging

# Frontend
cd apps/frontend && npm run build:staging

# Backend
cd apps/backend && npm run build:staging

To provision a brand-new instance from scratch (infrastructure + app code), see the root QUICKSTART.md.

Technology Stack

Layer	Technologies
Frontend	React 19, TypeScript, Vite, TanStack Query
Backend	Node.js, AWS Lambda, PostgreSQL, Hasura
Scanning	Chromium, axe-core, veraPDF
Infrastructure	AWS (Lambda, SQS, S3, CloudFront, Cognito), provisioned via Terraform

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
│   Frontend  │────▶│   Backend   │────▶│  Database   │
│   (React)   │     │   (Lambda)  │     │ (PostgreSQL)│
└─────────────┘     └─────────────┘     └─────────────┘
                          │
                          ▼
                    ┌─────────────┐
                    │ SQS Router  │
                    └─────────────┘
                          │
              ┌───────────┴───────────┐
              ▼                       ▼
        ┌───────────┐           ┌───────────┐
        │   HTML    │           │    PDF    │
        │  Scanner  │           │  Scanner  │
        └───────────┘           └───────────┘

Support

• GitHub Issues: Technical bugs and feature requests
• Documentation: This folder and inline code comments
• Newsletter: it.uic.edu/accessibility/engineering

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Equalify is an open-source project by UIC Technology Solutions.