Technology Stack

Docklift is built using a modern, lightweight, and performance-oriented stack.

Frontend (User Interface)

• Bundler / Dev: Vite (dev server on :3600)
• UI: React 19 + React Router
• Language: TypeScript
• Styling:
  • Tailwind CSS v3
  • Shadcn UI (Radix UI primitives)
  • tailwindcss-animate
• App shell: Custom sidebar shell in frontend/src/components/shell/ + frontend/src/app/AppShell.tsx
• State/Data:
  • React Hooks (useState, useEffect)
  • Native fetch via authFetch() / fetchWithAuth() helpers (frontend/src/lib/auth.ts)
  • EventSource (SSE logs)
• Editor: Monaco Editor
• Terminal: xterm.js over WebSocket
• Icons: Lucide React
• Notifications: Sonner
• Theming: Custom ThemeProvider (frontend/src/lib/theme.tsx)

Backend (API & Orchestration)

• Runtime: Node.js 24 (production Docker images; Bun used for install/build)
• Package Manager: Bun (fast install & script runner)
• Dev Runner: tsx (bun run dev → tsx watch src/index.ts, serves :8000)
• Framework: Express 5.2
• Language: TypeScript
• Database:
  • SQLite (local file-based DB)
  • Prisma ORM 6 (data access)
• Docker Control: Dockerode for inspect/logs, docker CLI for compose/build
• App Builder: Railpack (pinned version, invoked through docker buildx)
• Compose Generation: js-yaml
• Git Operations: Simple-Git
• Monitoring: Systeminformation (CPU, RAM, usage stats)
• Archives: archiver (backups), unzipper (uploads, wrapped by lib/safeUnzip.ts)
• Auth:
  • jsonwebtoken (JWT)
  • bcrypt (password hashing, 12 rounds)
  • express-rate-limit
• WebSocket: ws (web terminal)

Infrastructure

• Containers: Docker + Docker Compose (+ BuildKit/buildx for Railpack builds)
• Images: docklift-backend, docklift-frontend (explicit names; containers docklift-*)
• Dashboard gateway: docklift-nginx → host :8080 (nginx.conf)
• App domains proxy: docklift-nginx-proxy → host :80 + :443
• Certificates: docklift-certbot (Let's Encrypt HTTP-01, renewal loop every 12h)