The Baseline

The Baseline is a text-first, responsive web application foundation supporting men's mental-health conversations and access to appropriate resources. It currently provides the web client, API health check, and development tooling; conversation and resource features are not yet implemented.

Directory structure

client/   React + TypeScript + Vite frontend
server/   Express + TypeScript backend
data/     Local SQLite databases (gitignored)

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu or another Node.js-compatible environment
• Node.js 20 or newer
• npm 10 or newer

better-sqlite3 may require standard native build tools when a prebuilt binary is unavailable.

Installation

npm install
cp server/.env.example server/.env

The environment file is optional for the defaults and must remain local.

Development commands

• npm run dev starts both development servers.
• npm run build builds client and server.
• npm run typecheck checks TypeScript in both workspaces.
• npm test runs all workspace tests.

Ports

Vite listens on 0.0.0.0:5173. Express listens on 0.0.0.0:3101 by default, configurable through HOST and PORT in server/.env. Vite proxies /api to http://localhost:3101. Port 3001 is reserved for AnythingLLM.

Current implementation status

• Responsive, accessible status screen with checking, connected, and unavailable API states
• GET /api/health service health response
• Import-safe automated health-endpoint test
• npm workspace development, build, type-check, and test commands
• SQLite dependency installed; schema and data access intentionally not implemented

Authentication, AI integrations, therapeutic advice, crisis classification, voice, resource-directory administration, deployment, Docker, and Tailwind remain outside this foundation's scope.