> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.nightjar.ca/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Contributing

> Monorepo layout, dev setup, and where to start.

Nightjar is developed in the open at [github.com/Snapsonic/nightjar](https://github.com/Snapsonic/nightjar). Issues and pull requests are welcome.

## Monorepo layout

| Path              | What it is                                                                        |
| ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `apps/node`       | The self-hosted NVR service (TypeScript, run via `tsx`, no build step)            |
| `apps/web`        | Cloud dashboard (Next.js) at app.nightjar.ca                                      |
| `apps/marketing`  | nightjar.ca                                                                       |
| `packages/shared` | Zod schemas and the realtime signaling protocol — the contract between everything |
| `packages/db`     | Generated Supabase types and typed clients                                        |
| `supabase/`       | Migrations and edge functions                                                     |
| `docker/`         | Compose files for production and dev                                              |

## Dev setup

Requires Node 22+ and pnpm.

```bash theme={null}
pnpm install
pnpm dev                                # all apps
pnpm turbo run lint typecheck build     # what CI runs
```

To run the node itself you also need go2rtc and ffmpeg on your PATH (`brew install go2rtc ffmpeg` on macOS), or use `docker/compose.dev.yml`:

```bash theme={null}
mkdir -p data/{config,db,recordings,go2rtc}

# terminal 1 — go2rtc reading the config the node renders
go2rtc -config data/go2rtc/go2rtc.yaml

# terminal 2 — the node
CONFIG_DIR=./data/config \
DB_DIR=./data/db \
GO2RTC_CONFIG_DIR=./data/go2rtc \
pnpm --filter @nightjar/node dev
```

One-time: download the object-detection model (\~20 MB):

```bash theme={null}
pnpm --filter @nightjar/node fetch-model
```

Leave the `NIGHTJAR_SUPABASE_*` variables unset to develop local-only (the cloud link stays disabled). See the [node README](https://github.com/Snapsonic/nightjar/tree/main/apps/node) for the full module map and internals.

## Where to start

* Browse [good first issues](https://github.com/Snapsonic/nightjar/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22).
* The [roadmap items](/reference/architecture#what-is-roadmap-not-shipped) — ONVIF discovery, the Nest SDM bridge, configurable detection thresholds — are all open ground.
* Docs fixes are contributions too; this site lives in `docs/`.

## Licensing notes

Contributions are accepted under [AGPL-3.0](/project/license), the project's license. One deliberate choice worth knowing: the object-detection weights are **YOLOX-tiny (Apache-2.0)**, not Ultralytics YOLO models, whose weights are AGPL and would complicate downstream use. Keep that in mind if you touch the detection stack.