Files
school_compare/claude.md
T
TudorandClaude Opus 5 eaf5e5d180 docs: describe the system that exists, not the one we started with
The README still opened on "Primary School Compass", a KS2 tool for Wandsworth
and Merton served by FastAPI and vanilla JavaScript with Chart.js. Every layer
of that sentence is now wrong: coverage is England-wide across KS2, KS4,
all-through and post-16, Next.js owns the public UI, and school data comes from
dbt-built `marts.*` rather than CSVs loaded at startup. The setup instructions
walked a reader into a virtualenv and a CSV import that cannot build the current
schema, so following the docs produced an empty database and a wrong mental
model at the same time.

Replace the narrative docs with two reference documents that were checked
against the code: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for request flow, data ownership, the
backend/frontend module boundaries and the real publication sequence, and
docs/DEVELOPMENT.md for the checks that actually run, including the container
and CI version skew that makes "just run pytest" misleading.

The env examples drifted the same way. ALLOWED_ORIGINS is a JSON array, not a
comma-separated list; the frontend needs FASTAPI_URL, DATABASE_URL and
PAYLOAD_SECRET, none of which were documented; and RATE_LIMIT_BURST,
DEFAULT_PAGE_SIZE and MAX_PAGE_SIZE were presented as tuning controls the routes
do not consult. Each is now stated as it behaves.

MIGRATION_SUMMARY.md keeps its content but gains a banner, because it reads like
setup instructions and is not.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_016y2J6bs8gbuSJbH18w7Tan
2026-09-14 23:01:15 +01:00

1.9 KiB

SchoolCompare project context

Maintained documentation

Read README.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/DEVELOPMENT.md for the current implementation. docs/LEGACY_CODE.md records obsolete paths and deliberate compatibility code. Historical design documents are not current setup instructions.

Architecture constraints

  • Next.js serves the public UI. FastAPI serves school data from dbt-built marts.*. The backend does not create school tables or import CSVs at startup.
  • School coverage spans England and multiple phases, not only primary schools in Wandsworth and Merton.
  • /api/* belongs to the FastAPI proxy. Payload uses /cms-api and /admin.
  • Payload runs inside Next.js, with its own payload schema and persistent media. Keep CMS migrations independent of school-data transformations.
  • Public and Payload route groups have separate root layouts. Do not introduce app/layout.tsx. Keep site-wide metadata files at the app/ root.
  • Builds must succeed with DATABASE_URL unset. Do not call getCachedPayload() at module scope or add DB-backed generateStaticParams.
  • After changing CMS fields/editors, run npm run generate:importmap and commit the generated import map. See nextjs-app/docs/PUBLISHING.md.
  • The backend and pipeline GIAS dictionary copies are generated together; preserve their parity. Tests enforce it.

SDLC

Follow docs/DEPLOY.md.

  • Never push directly to main. Use a feature branch and a PR with passing checks.
  • Merges deploy staging only. Production promotion is a separate human decision; do not trigger the promotion workflow yourself.
  • Update E2E journeys in the same PR when changing user-facing behaviour.
  • Do not attempt to start a local server to test the application; use unit checks and the configured integration environment.